Chapter 146

Sofia. The night air was cold. Not the kind of cold that bit at your skin. Not the kind that sent shivers racing down your spine. This was something else. Something hollow. The kind of cold that crept into your bones, settled in your veins, and wrapped around your heart like an iron vice. I sat in the back of the car, staring out at the city lights blurring past, but I didn’t see them. All I could see was Aurelio. Pale. Motionless. His body hooked up to machines, his chest barely rising and falling. The last time I had seen him, really seen him, he had been full of life. Full of energy. Full of that fire that burned inside all of us. Now? Now, he was trapped between life and death, teetering on the edge. And I hadn’t been there. I had been tangled up in Arsen. Lost in him. Lost in us. Letting myself forget, even if just for a moment, that the world outside still existed. And while I had been pretending— My brother had been bleeding out. A sharp, stinging pain shot through my palm. I lo