Page 142 of Cara
“No.”
“I hope you still think it was worth it.”
His lips keep on moving, but I can’t hear or see him. All I perceive is the pounding in my ears and the fury of my heart in my chest. The gruesome deaths I envision waging on his body to replace this numbness that is spreading through me like a disease.
I'm blind, the weight in my palm gone as I lose hold of the blade.
No.
Grab it.
This is what he wants.
But I'm frozen, only conscious enough to smell this decayingbuilding, remembering it in its imposing prime. The whir of the air conditioning seeping through the vents. The residue of fogged tobacco and lead. Rotting asbestos. The faintness of blood and death.
Suddenly, I am no longer the predator.
I'm the blind doe, frozen in headlights.
And as severely as my mind rations, begging to stay, the body rules the heart. Like a coward, I stagger out of the building, unable to see until I'm free of the overly bright walls, the bars that caged me for months. I can hardly fathom how, even for a second, I had the courage to go inside.
Let alone face Vito Marin.
As vision returns to me, I see my mother at every stage of my life. It doesn’t matter if we had already said goodbye. It doesn’t matter that there was no longer room for her in my heart. She was there once—when I was a girl, too young for them to expect anything from me.
Mamma.
Calloused hands cradle my face. “Sophie.”
“Let…go… of…me.”
The words loose like gunshots, striking at anything near.
The hands release me.
The bourbon burns as it drifts down my gullet.
As I eagerly drain the last drops from the crystal decanter, likely a cursed heirloom, the room spins, the air feels hot, and the liquor has numbed my senses enough not to care.
Xavier could easily break down the door if he wanted, yet he only knocked once. When I didn’t respond, he didn’t try again.
Weaknesses get you killed.
Losing myself in the blaze within the hearth, my life swirls amid the flames.
Sophia, the daughter.Mamma. The wife. The sister. The guilty.Mamma. Thomas.
Weaknesses get you killed.
The flames become the people I have left, consumed by a deathly inferno, and I'm raging, unable to be smothered. My skin is wet to the touch, sleek with sweat.
More liquor. More will end this.
More will make me forget her.Mamma.
Him.Thomas.
My wrist tremors as I pour the golden liquid into a glass, spilling it onto the mahogany.
