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It’s more than just conspiring with Lev to kill her father—I’ve already thought that through, and the reward outweighs the risk. I’ll deal with the fall outifit ever happens.
The things I can’t stop thinking about are mundane. Has she finally started eating or will I have to force her when I get back? Did she get enough sleep last night? Is she still walking around with the knife strapped to her? Has anyone harassed her since I’ve been gone?
I’m sitting on the speedboat fumbling to turn on my phone when that last thought crosses my mind. I left Ezra and Vance to take care of her, and they’re both capable of it.
But they’re not me.
They don’t care about her the way I do.
I would much rather do it myself.
An itch snakes its way up my throat. Gaspare has a cigarette hanging from his lips as he looks out over the shimmering, still water. I’m about to ask him for one and a light, when my phone starts chirping.
Incessantly.
At first I think it’s all the backlog of notifications from my trading apps. But no, it’s messages—fromEzra.I sift through the previews quickly, my heart pounding in my chest. My fingertips are blocks of ice, and it’s like I can’t read fast enough to sate the anxiety pumping through my blood.
E: Get back as soon as you can.
“Can you get me to the shore any faster?” I ask Gaspare, as I start to dial Ezra’s number.
He gives me a dull look, but obliges me.
The phone goes to voicemail.
The last message he sent was at three in the morning. There’s no time difference between Switzerland and Italy, so that was three hours ago. A lot can happen in three hours. And now he isn’t fucking picking up the phone.
My thoughts of Alize take a macabre turn.
Is this about her? It’s got to be about her—why else would he send me such a cryptic message? I sort through the rest of the messages he’s sent, but none of them give me any more information, they are all variations of the same thing.
Ezra’s trying to spare me the details of whatever’s happened.
He’s managing my reaction. It’s something he always fucking does—he thinks he’s so goddamn smart and above it all, that he has to control everything. Even how people react.
I take a deep breath, but it doesn’t quench the fire in my chest. Everything feels worse. A headache sparks behind my eyes and my breaths grow shallow. We’re quickly approaching the shoreline but it just isn’tquickenough.
Maybe it isn’t about Alize.
She’s fine. She has to be.
But the darkness in my thoughts bring the scenes of the past few weeks to the forefront of my mind. Public sentiment about my relationship with Alize soured the moment her identity leaked—it was a risk to leave her alone on campus, even with my friends, even as my Courtesan.
Life is a tally of choices.
Did I make the wrong one?
My stomach is in knots as I scroll through the messages again. Hoping to see something I missed before, something that will reassure me that I’m just overreacting and that Alize is okay.
There is none.
I can’t lose her.
Not like this.Not this way.
Our life together hasn’t even started yet.
The iciness in my fingertips spreads through my entire body, chilling the cavernous emptiness emanating from my chest. By the time Gaspare docks the speedboat and I get out onto the pier, it feels like I’m moving in slow motion, watching myself from above.
