"Don't overthink it." His voice was gruff, almost gentle. "You've finally finished the trials. Come. Let us take you for a drive through the old streets. We have something for you."
I nodded. I did not refuse. I was leaving this city, and I wanted to look at it one last time. Every crumbling facade. Every lamppost. Every corner where three children had once played at being invincible. I wanted to carry the image with me so that when I closed the door on this life, I would remember exactly what I was walking away from.
We descended to the garage beneath the compound. The air was cooler there, heavy with the scent of motor oil and cold concrete. Three cars waited in a row, their polished surfaces gleaming under the fluorescent lights.
Giancarlo moved first. He opened the passenger door of his black sedan and gestured for Rosalia to sit. Salvatore did the same with his own car, pulling the door wide, his eyes already on her.
Rosalia hesitated. She looked at me from beneath her lashes, her expression a masterwork of manufactured discomfort.
"Isn't the passenger seat reserved for Seraphina?" She pressed her fingers together, the picture of reluctance. "If I sit there, she'll be upset with me."
Giancarlo placed his hand on the small of her back and guided her into the seat with a firmness that brooked no argument. The words left his mouth before he could catch them, raw and unguarded.
"She doesn't deserve..." He stopped. Swallowed. Rearranged the sentence like a man defusing a bomb he had accidentally armed. "She won't mind. She has the best temper of anyone I know."
I heard it. The first two words. The ones he tried to bury beneath the correction. She doesn't deserve it.
Salvatore heard them too. His expression darkened, a muscle jumping in his jaw. He slammed his own car door shut with enough force to echo through the concrete chamber, his fury directed not at the insult itself but at the fact that Giancarlo had spoken it first, had claimed the right to diminish me before Salvatore could position himself as the kinder man.
Both engines turned over. Both cars idled, ready to pull out into the fading afternoon light. It was only then, in the same shared moment, that they realized I was still standing on the concrete, alone, between their taillights.