The pressure builds in my chest. Not panic this time. Something else. Something that wants out but doesn't know the exit.
"My head is..." I trail off. Try again. "There's too much. I can't separate it."
"Try."
One word. Soft but firm. A command wrapped in patience.
I close my eyes. Force myself to think. To actually examine the chaos instead of shoving it down like I always do.
What do I feel?
The first thing that surfaces is fear. Raw, ugly fear. Fear that she'll leave. Fear that she'll stay and I'll destroy her. Fear that this—whatever this is between us—will end the same way everything else in my life ends. In blood. In loss. In another person I care about taken from me.
But I can't say that. Can't admit that Bruno Sartori, the man who tortured someone three days ago without flinching, is terrified of a twenty-one-year-old woman with green eyes and a dimple.
"Confused," I finally say. "I feel confused."
"About what?"
About everything. About you. About why you're still here. About why you looked at me transferring to this bed and didn't flinch. About why you traced my scars like they were something worth touching instead of evidence of failure.
"About this." I gesture vaguely between us. "About what we're doing."
"We had sex, Bruno. That's what we did."
"I know what we did." My voice comes out sharper than intended. "I was there."
She doesn't react to my tone. Just keeps watching me with those patient eyes.
"Then what's confusing?"
I sit up, ignoring the protest in my muscles. The sheets pool around my waist. Antonella sits up too, pulling her knees to her chest, not bothering to cover herself. Comfortable in her nakedness in a way I'll never be.
"Two weeks ago, you were a stranger," I say. "A transaction. A test Pietro set up to prove I could be stable. You were supposed to be nothing."
"And now?"
Now you're everything.
The thought hits me like a bullet. I shove it down. Bury it. Refuse to examine it.
"Now I don't know what you are."
Antonella tilts her head. "Is that bad?"
"Yes." The word comes out before I can stop it. "It's bad because I don't do this. I don't let people in. I don't talk about feelings. I don't lie in bed after sex and have conversations about what's in my head."
"Why not?"
"Because there's nothing good in my head." I meet her eyes. "There's anger. There's violence. There's two years of wanting to die and being too much of a coward to do it."
The words pour out. I can't stop them.
"There's looking at you and wanting things I have no right to want. There's jealousy so strong I almost killed your best friend for hugging you. There's possessiveness that scares me because I've never felt it before. Not like this."
Antonella doesn't interrupt. Doesn't look away. Doesn't run.
"I feel like I'm drowning," I admit. "Like I've been drowning for two years and you're the first breath of air I've had. And that terrifies me because I don't know how to swim anymore. I forgot. Or maybe I never knew."