He pulled her into his arms. Her face was white, her forehead slick with cold sweat, as though she were fighting through unbearable pain.
She spoke, her voice weak and full of wounded innocence.
"Husband… don't blame my sister. She's just too heartbroken… I'm fine…"
Every word sounded like a defense of me. Every word pushed the blame squarely onto my shoulders.
"I didn't—"
I barely got the words out before I was cut off.
Her choked sobbing lit the fuse of his anger.
He didn't hesitate. His voice went cold and flat. "Adrian, even if your husband is dead, that's no reason to take it out on someone else. Don't forget, Chloe isn't like you. She has a husband who protects her."
He lifted Adrian Winslow into his arms and turned away.
From start to finish, he never looked at me again.
I stood where I was and watched their figures grow smaller, moving between the headstones until the gravel path swallowed them.
My heart twisted, hard, as if someone had taken it in their fist and wrung it.
I held on. I did not let the tears fall.
In the end, I went home alone.
Three days. That was all the time I had left before I disappeared from this Family for good.
This time, I didn't lock myself inside the room.
The places I had once walked with him, I visited them all. One by one.
The first day, I went to the lovers' bridge under Family watch.
Among the rows upon rows of locks lining the iron railing, I found ours quickly.
The face of the lock was etched with crooked, uneven letters.
"Julian Moretti and Adrian Bellandi will be together forever."
That day, he had held my hand over the metal while he carved each word. His penmanship was always precise, controlled, the handwriting of a man who left nothing to chance. But the engraving tool was unfamiliar in his grip, and the letters came out a mess.
I had laughed at him for a long time.
The tips of his ears turned red. A rare, unguarded awkwardness.
"Adrian, my head is so full of you that I can't even carve straight. You owe me for that."
The words had barely left his mouth before he leaned down and kissed me.
I stood on that bridge now. I took the key from my pocket and opened the lock.
Then I threw it as hard as I could.
The lock traced an arc through the air and disappeared over the edge, swallowed by the hillside below.
The second day, I went to the parish chapel of San Clemente.