Page 2 of Tragic Empire
I don’t want to think about it.
I don’t want to believe it’s true.
“Cole,” I croak, breathing out his name.
Her small hands squeeze my wrists, and she lets out a noise of worry.
“Cole? Is Cole with you?”
I wish.
I’d give anything to say he was here with me.
My throat burns and I look at my crimson-stained hands.
“They killed Cole,” I wheeze, chest shaking.
Saying it out loud only makes the pain worse. It’s sharper, more direct, an invisible ice pick to the heart.
“Oh my god,” my friend whispers with a haunted tone.
“Fuck,” I hear muttered. Anatoly, I think.
“Dmitri!” Jade calls out, voice laced with worry. “Bring Apollo!”
She squeezes me again, and I shudder, the panic and grief slowly beginning to pull me under.
“It’s going to be okay,” she vows, wrapping her arms around my shoulders. “We’ve got you now. Everything is going to be all right, Ana.”
It’s not going to be okay. How can it?
Cole isgone.
Voices surround me, questions fired back and forth, but I can’t seem to find any words. I’m losing myself in this wallowing, finding it harder and harder to breathe.
“She said they killed Cole?—”
“Who’sthey?”
“I don’t know! She’s clearly distraught, Apollo, I?—”
Hands grip my shoulders and Jade makes a noise of protest.
“Be gentle with her?—”
“Krasotka, let him.” That’s Dmitri’s voice, and his nickname for his wife, meaning he isn’t the one touching me.
I continue to cry through the discussion, feeling like I’ve lost the ability to stop. It’s like I’m suspended in time, frozen in despair.
“Ana!”Apollo snaps, shaking my shoulders hard.
The motion jars me so much that it sort of hurts, but I don’t hate it. It almost feels as though he’s rocking my brain back into place. Like maybe I can get a hold of myself if I try.
“Apollo!” Jade cries out in return, affronted by his treatment of me.
“Let him,” someone instructs again. Dmitri, I suppose.
Apollo Moretti is Jade’s scariest brother, which says a lot because she has nine of them. And from what I’ve gathered, Nico is literally a psychopath. But Apollo? He’s something else entirely. The firstborn of Dante Moretti, making him the future Capo of The Outfit—the Italian Mafia that dominates the East Coast of the United States with ease.
