Page 26 of Untamed

“No!” Bianca’s voice is sharp, final. “She’s not staying in London.”

Enzo exhales roughly, like he’s been expecting this fight. “Bianca, that’s her home. Her friends, her life?—”

“Her home is gone,” Bianca bites out. “Her parents are gone. There’s nothing left for her there, Enzo. It’s just the two of us, we’re all we have.”

“I get that amore, but do you think keeping her here will fix that?”

“I’m not trying to fix it!” Bianca practically shouts, then drops her voice into a broken whisper. “I’m trying to keep her safe. I’m her big sister, and already I’m failing. She’s been gone for hours, and I don’t know where she is. What if something happened to her?”

Silence thick and painful stretches between them.

“Bianca, she’s nineteen, not twelve,” Enzo states finally, quieter but no less firm. “She has a life to go back to. You can’t force her to stay here with you if she doesn’t want to stay.”

“She doesn’t have anyone else,” Bianca snaps back. “She has me. That’s it. And I’m not sending her halfway across the world to rot in that empty house all alone.”

Enzo doesn’t answer right away. When he finally speaks, his voice is quiet, reluctant. “And what about here, Bianca? You think she’ll be safe here? She watched your parents get killed. The further she gets from Sicily, the better it will be for her. The faster she will heal, honey.”

Enzo’s words hang in the air like a loaded gun, and Bianca doesn’t respond.

She doesn’t have to.

Because deep down, they both know the truth. I don’t belong in Sicily, the island that took my parents. I was never supposed to be a permanent guest in this manor, or their lives for that matter. They’re newlyweds. They should be basking in their marital bliss, not arguing over what to do with me.

With a resigned sigh, I pull the sleeves of the hoodie tighter, the feeling of not belonginganywheresuffocating me.

Before anyone notices me, I slip down another hallway, my heart pounding in my ears.

I don’t want to listen to them talk about me like I’m some problem they don’t know how to solve.

I just want—hell, I don’t even know what I want anymore.

Maybe to disappear. Maybe to go back to Ares’s kitchen and sit in silence where things made sense for half a second.

Grief is supposed to get easier with time. That’s what people say.

They’re fucking liars.

Because every day feels heavier. Every minute stretches longer. Every breath carves another hollow into my chest. The funeral is over. The flowers are dead. The condolences have stoppedpouring in. And I’m still here. Stuck in this giant, cold, echoing house that feels like anything but a home. That will probably never feel like home.

I’m officially a permanent guest at the Russo Manor now. A problem everyone’s too polite to say out loud. An orphan girl too broken to fix.

Bianca tries. She hovers like a storm cloud, full of good intentions and desperate smiles that never quite reach her eyes. Enzo avoids me. Too busy. Too careful. Like he’s afraid, if he says the wrong thing, I’ll fall apart. And me? I don’t even know who I am anymore.

Some days I barely get out of bed. Other days, I drink too much coffee, too much wine, too much anything just to drown out the roaring in my head. Some days, I sit at the edge of the pool up on the terrace with my legs dangling in the water, daring myself to slip under and stay there.

I don’t, though. Even when I’m desperate to, the promise I made Ares stops me every time.

But the thought lingers. It clings to me like a second skin I can’t peel off.

I snap at people for no reason. I disappear for hours, wandering the grounds like some half-dead entity, pretending I can still breathe. I lie when Bianca asks if I’m okay. I lie when Matteo teases me, and I force a brittle smile. I lie every time I look in the mirror and tell myself that I’m fine.

Because the truth is...I’m not fine. I’m so far from fine, I don’t even know if there’s a road back to it anymore.

I’m angry. I’m lost. I’m broken in a way that feels very permanent.

And no one here knows what to do with me.

Least of all me.

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