It doesn’t. Of course it doesn’t. He’s always permanent.
I’m the one thing he couldn’t quite hold still.
I close the passport and press it against my chest, where my heart is performing some kind of protest—uneven, insistent, aching in ways that have nothing to do with my injuries.
This is how men like Giovanni Bavga love, isn’t it? They don’t hold you tighter; they build exits. They don’t promise forever; they eliminate interference. They make arrangements. They clear paths. They hand you freedom dressed up as logistics and then disappear before you can say thank you.
He’s setting me free.
And he’s paying for my wings.
But why? Because I saw him kill Rico? Because I’m a liability? Because attachment is a weakness a man like him can’t afford?
Or—God help me—because he actually gives a damn what happens to me?
The room answers with its quiet excess. The ridiculous abundance of flowers. The private suite that smells like sterilized wealth. The stack of cash—$31,750, exactly.
The reward he promised.
A transaction completed. A contract closed.
Except nothing about my chest feels balanced or clean. It feels hollowed out—like something vital was excised while I was asleep.
Six days.
Six days of him sitting beside me, writing confessions in those notebooks. Talking to a version of me suspended somewhere between this world and the next.
Six days of—what? Guilt? Duty? Devotion? I don’t even know what word fits.
And now he’s gone. Off to handle “business.”
Which probably means bleaching blood and erasing cousins.
Meanwhile, I get a new name, a stack of money, and a blank destination line.
It should feel like salvation. It should feel like winning.
So why does it feel like loss?
I trace my thumb over his handwriting—Miss Take.The nickname I hated. The one that made me feel defective, like a misprint of a person.
Except now I see the joke. The tenderness hidden in the cruelty.
Miss Take.
Not mistake. Not wrong. Not failure.
Miss. Take.
Take the chance. Take the out. Take your life back.
And damn him—he meant it.
I close my eyes, passport still pressed to my chest, and listen to the proof that I’m still here. The pulse he counted. The life he guarded. The decision he made when I couldn’t.
A clean slate. A fresh start. A world of open doors.
All I have to do is walk away from the only person who’s seen me—really seen me—since the night my parents died.