Page 54 of Alessia
“Thank you.”, I tell the waiter. Lorenzo looks at me with a puzzling look.
“What’s in it?” He asks.
I open the envelope and take out a little card. When I read it all the blood drains from my face. My world spins and my legs give out from under me. Lorenzo catches me and places me on the nearest chair.
“What is it?” His face is etched with worry. But I can’t speak, my mouth is dry and my throat closes up.
“Alessia, dammit! What’s on the note?” He bellows.
I hand him the note and his eyes scan the paper; he reads the single sentence that’s on it.
I told you to say goodbye.
16 - Gianni
Ican see Harper struggling against the bindings on the live camera feed in the van. Her breath ragged behind the gag. The dim flickering streetlight illuminates her for a second before the feed gets darker again and lights up at the next lamppost.
She’s still hours away from me but I can wait.
I can wait for my revenge.
I lean against the rusted table in one of my safe houses here in Rome, rolling the gold band between my fingers.
Fourteen years.
Fourteen years of devotion. Of waiting. Of watching Alessia build a life that never should have been hers to begin with.
I smile, slow and measured, as I pocket the ring.
I needed to get Alessia’s attention, and nothing gets her attention quite like getting something, someone, that means a lot to her.
My fingers trace the ring in my pocket, my mind drifting back to that night fourteen years ago. Seventeen-year-old Alessia, sitting on her knees before me, unaware that the universe had already decided her fate. That I had decided it for her.
I have left her gifts every year since. Trinkets, delicate things meant to remind her of what we shared, of who she belonged to.
A locket.
A single red rose.
A silk rope.
Each carefully placed where she would find them, each are a whisper of the promise I made to myself that night.
She was always meant to bemine.
