Somewhere in the night, Malachar held her pelt and smiled.
Chapter Eighteen
Forty-seven feet. That was the distance between Marina’s couch, where Alessandro now lay, and Bea’s apartment above the crystal shop. Close enough to feel through the bond. Far enough to be unreachable.
He stared at the smoke-stained ceiling and counted the feet again, as if recounting might shorten them.
The knock on the door came around three in the morning. Alessandro didn’t move.
It came again. Harder.
“I know you’re awake.” Dante’s voice, rough with his own lack of sleep. “Let me in.”
Alessandro unlocked the door without getting up. His brother entered, took one look at the apartment: Alessandro sprawled on the couch in yesterday’s clothes, the empty coffee cups, the general air of devastation. He sat down on the floor.
“She left,” Dante said.
“She’s at Bea’s.”
“That’s leaving. You know that’s leaving.”
Alessandro stared at the ceiling. “I know.”
“What happened?”
“I made the same mistakes,” Alessandro said. “The ones I swore I’d never make.”
Dante was quiet.
“You treated her like Dad treats Mom,” he said. “Like her concerns aren’t as important as yours.”
Alessandro flinched.
Alessandro remembered being twelve, watching his mother suggest they vacation somewhere other than the family estate in the Alps. His father hadn’t argued. Hadn’t even looked up from his papers. Just said “We always go to the Alps” and that had been the end of it. His mother’s face had gone carefully blank, the look of a woman who had learned that her opinions didn’t matter.
He’d promised himself he would never be that man.
And yet.
“I thought I was different,” he said. “I thought I was better.”
“You’re not better yet. But you could be.” Dante leaned against the wall. “The question is whether you’re willing to do the work. Not just grand gestures. Not just swooping in when there’s danger. The boring, unglamorous work of shutting up and listening when she tells you something you don’t want to hear.”
“I don’t know how.”
“Then learn.”
The simplicity of it landed like a blow.
“She told me something was wrong,” he said. “The first time she met Malachar. She felt it. And I told her she was seeing conspiracy where there was coincidence.”
“Yeah.”
“She was right about everything. And I didn’t believe her until he admitted it to her face.”
“Why?”
“Because believing her meant admitting I’d been wrong. About Malachar. About myself.” He pressed his hands against his eyes. “My need for control isn’t strength. It’s fear wearing a mask.”
