He was going to destroy you, Neve.
I knew.God, I knew.It had been kill or be killed, and he had picked the role long before I did.I did what I had to do.
Still… there was a part of me, buried deep and fragile, that whispered a quieter truth.The one Giuseppe had tried to stitch into me as he trained me to protect myself:
You don’t wait for mercy.You protect yourself to stay alive.No matter the cost.
And that night, the cost was blood.A complete stranger’s.And now I had to live with what that made me.
15
Neve
Ididn’t want to be alone.
That was the only reason I texted Zelda the moment I left my house the next morning.Just a simple:Coffee?
She answered in less than a minute —I’m out already.Come meet me.
So I did.
By the time I reached the café, she was already waving me over from a small table near the window.She looked annoyed about something, which I knew by now was her default expression, but her eyes softened the moment she saw my face.
“You look like you barely slept,” she remarked.
I hadn’t.I’d spent half the night scrubbing blood off my skin and the other half staring at the ceiling, waiting for another man to step out of another alley and drag me into the dark.My hands still felt shaky hours later.But I didn’t tell her any of that.
I sat down across from her and wrapped my fingers around the coffee cup she pushed toward me.It was warm, solid.
We talked about nothing for a few minutes.How her day was going.The market.Paolo being dramatic again.I nodded along, but my mind kept drifting back to yesterday in the alley.The way the man’s blood pooled.The way his body had stopped moving.The way I’d walked home afterward like I hadn’t just killed someone.
I didn’t feel guilty.I felt… unsettled.Alert.Too aware of how alone I was in this world.
A silence fell between us, and Zelda tilted her head.
“What happened?”she asked quietly.
I blinked.“What do you mean?”
“You have bruise on your face that wasn’t there yesterday.You look like something’s on your mind.Talk to me.”
I swallowed hard.The words almost rose.I killed a man.But the thought of saying it out loud terrified me more than the act itself.If I told her—if she knew what I was capable of—maybe she’d pull back.Maybe I’d lose the only person in this city who made me feel like I belonged anywhere.
“I’m fine.”
She gave me a long look that said she didn’t believe a word of it.
“Neve,” she sighed, “whatever it is, you know you can talk to me, right?”
I swallowed past the lump in my throat.
“I know you’ve had a hard time adjusting to the city.You don’t have to carry everything alone.I’ve told you that.”
“I know.”
She sat back, studying me.Then, softer, “You know I have a spare room, right?You could move in.You’d save money.And you wouldn’t be by yourself all the time.I’m actually worried about you, Neve.”
I stared at my cup.The idea appealed to me more than I expected.A place where someone else existed.Where someone was nearby if something went wrong.Somewhere I could sleep without counting every creak in the floorboards, waiting for the other shoe to drop.