Chapter 2 The Things We Leave Alive

Chapter Two: The Things We Leave Alive

The first thing Bella noticed was that Alessandro was still breathing.

The second was that she was relieved.

She hated herself for both.

"Alex?"

He lay on the marble floor with one hand pressed against his side. Blood seeped between his fingers, spreading across his white shirt. His face had gone pale, but when Bella dropped beside him, he caught her wrist.

"Don't," he muttered.

She stared at him. "Don't what?"

"Cry."

"I'm not crying."

"Your face says otherwise."

She almost laughed. It came out as a broken breath instead.

"You've been shot, Alessandro. Can you stop being an insufferable bastard for five minutes?"

His mouth twitched, and for one ridiculous second, she was seventeen again, sitting beside him on the steps behind her father's house while he stole food from her plate and pretended he hadn't.

Then she looked at the blood on her hands.

The memory disappeared.

"Someone get a doctor!" she screamed.

Footsteps thundered above them. Doors slammed. Somewhere in the mansion, a woman was crying.

Bella pressed her hands against Alex's wound, trying to remember everything she'd ever heard about stopping bleeding. Her fingers shook so badly that she could barely keep them in place.

"Look at me," she said.

His eyes found hers.

"Stay awake."

"Bossy."

"Alex."

"I'm awake."

"Then tell me who shot you."

His expression changed.

Not much, but enough.

He looked past her toward the empty corridor.

"Where's Valentina?"

Bella went still.

Of course.

He was bleeding on the floor, and he was asking about another woman.

Something sharp twisted inside her chest. It was stupid, childish, and horribly inconvenient. She had no right to feel jealous. She and Alex had been nothing for three years.

Whatever they'd once been, he'd made sure it was over.

Still, she hated the thought that his last words might be about Val.

"She ran," Bella said. "After shooting you."

Alex looked back at her.

"Are you sure?"

Bella stared at him.

"What kind of question is that?"

Before he could answer, men rushed down the stairs. Two guards lifted him carefully while another ordered everyone to clear the corridor.

Alex reached for Bella's hand as they carried him away.

She caught his fingers.

He held on for a second longer than necessary.

Then he whispered something she almost missed.

"Don't trust the messages."

"What?"

But his eyes had closed.

And just like that, she was left standing in a corridor with blood on her dress and a phone that had just received a message from a dead man.

The mansion descended into chaos.

Guests were escorted into the ballroom and told to remain there until the police arrived. The guards checked every room, every bathroom, every unlocked door. Someone had switched off the music, and without it, the house seemed strangely ordinary.

Bella sat on the edge of a staircase, staring at her hands.

She'd washed them twice.

She could still see the blood.

A woman approached carrying a glass of water.

"Drink something."

Bella looked up.

Valentina.

For a moment, she genuinely forgot how to speak.

Val was wearing the same black dress she'd worn earlier, not the white one Bella had seen at the end of the corridor. Her hair was still neat, her makeup untouched. There was no blood on her, no gun in her hand.

She looked like someone who had simply stepped out for a breath of fresh air.

Bella stood so quickly that water spilled from the glass.

"You."

Val stopped.

"Bella"

"Don't."

Val set the glass down on the nearest table.

"Let me explain."

"Explain what? The part where you shot him, or the part where you disappeared afterward?"

Val's expression tightened.

"I didn't shoot Alessandro."

"I saw you."

"No. You saw someone wearing my dress."

Bella stared at her.

Val reached into her handbag and pulled out her phone. She unlocked it, opened a photograph, and held it out.

It showed Val standing beside a woman in a white dress at a charity event earlier that evening.

The woman had Val's face.

Not similar features. Not a passing resemblance.

The same face.

Bella looked from the photograph to Val.

"Who is she?"

"My sister."

"You have a sister?"

"Had."

The word settled between them.

Bella felt her anger hesitate, though she wasn't ready to let it go.

"What happened to her?"

Val looked away.

"That's a long story."

"Funny. Everyone in this house seems to have one."

Val's eyes returned to her.

"Your father did, too."

Bella's stomach tightened.

"Don't bring him into this."

"I think he's been in this longer than either of us."

For a moment, Val looked as though she wanted to say something else. Something important.

Instead, she reached for Bella's hand.

Bella pulled away.

"Don't touch me."

Val's expression fell, and Bella immediately hated that she'd noticed.

"I'm sorry," Val said quietly. "I know you don't trust me."

"You're right about that."

"But if I wanted Alessandro dead, I wouldn't have waited until you were standing beside him."

It was a terrible argument.

It was also annoyingly difficult to dismiss.

Before Bella could respond, a guard approached them.

"Miss Russo. Mr. Moretti wants to see you."

Val's face went blank.

"Which Mr. Moretti?"

The guard hesitated.

"Don Lorenzo."

Bella watched the colour drain from Val's face.

Then Val looked at her.

"Whatever happens next, don't leave this house."

"Why?"

Val began walking away.

"Because I don't think your father is the only person who came back from the dead."

I found Alessandro's blood on my shoes.

I noticed it while standing outside his bedroom, listening to a doctor explain that the bullet had missed anything vital.

The doctor had said he would recover.

I should have felt better.

Instead, I kept thinking about the way Alex had looked at me before they carried him away. Like there was something he wanted to tell me but couldn't risk saying aloud.

I'd seen that expression before.

The night my father died, Alex had called me at 2:13 a.m. I'd missed the call because my phone was on silent. When I called back, he didn't answer.

By morning, my father was dead.

For three years, I'd wondered what Alex had wanted to say.

Now I wasn't sure I wanted to know.

The bedroom door opened, and the doctor stepped out.

"He's asking for you."

I nodded and walked inside.

Alessandro was propped against several pillows, his shirt replaced by a loose black T-shirt. He looked exhausted, and there was a bandage wrapped around his side.

He also looked irritated.

Some things, apparently, survived a gunshot.

"You came," he said.

"Don't sound so surprised. I wanted to make sure you were suffering."

"That's sweet."

"I try."

I pulled a chair beside his bed but didn't sit immediately. I needed the distance. I needed something between us that wasn't a memory.

His gaze dropped to my hands.

"You washed the blood off."

"I thought it would be polite."

"Bella."

I hated the way he said my name when he was being serious. He used to say it like it belonged somewhere safe.

"What?"

"I'm sorry."

I looked at him.

For a second, I couldn't remember what I was supposed to say.

Alex Moretti didn't apologize. Not to his enemies, not to his business partners, and certainly not to me.

I sat down slowly.

"For what?"

He looked toward the window.

"Everything."

"That isn't an answer."

"It's the only one I have right now."

I laughed without humour. "You know, I used to think you were mysterious. Turns out you're just incredibly annoying."

That earned a faint smile.

Then it disappeared.

"Did you receive a message tonight?"

My stomach tightened.

"How do you know about that?"

"Because someone sent me one, too."

He reached toward the bedside table, picked up his phone, and handed it to me.

The message was from an unknown number.

You have until midnight to tell her what happened in the garden.

I read it twice.

"What garden?"

Alex held my gaze.

"The summer you were five."

I remembered the photograph in the basement. The little girl on the garden wall. The boy whose face had been scratched out.

My fingers tightened around his phone.

"What happened?"

He looked away again.

"I don't remember everything."

"That's convenient."

"I remember you crying. I remember my father telling me to stay inside. And I remember your father carrying someone through the back door."

"Someone who?"

"I don't know."

"You expect me to believe that?"

"No." He looked at me again. "I expect you to understand that if I knew the whole truth, I would have told you."

I wanted to believe him.

That was the humiliating part.

Even after everything, some foolish corner of my heart still wanted to find a reason to forgive him.

I put his phone down.

"Did you love me?"

He didn't answer immediately.

I almost wished he hadn't answered at all.

"Yes," he said. "I did."

"Then why did you leave?"

His eyes glistened, though he looked away before I could be sure.

"Because your father asked me to."

I stared at him.

For three years, I'd blamed myself for the way things ended. I'd replayed every conversation, every kiss, every moment I'd been too afraid to tell him how much he meant to me.

I'd wondered if I'd been too needy. Too emotional. Too easy to leave.

And now he was telling me that my father had been involved all along.

I opened my mouth to speak, but nothing came out.

Alex reached for my hand.

This time, I let him take it.

"I know you hate me," he said.

I looked down at our joined hands.

"I don't hate you."

His fingers tightened around mine.

"That might be worse."

Before I could ask what he meant, someone knocked on the door.

Three quick knocks.

Alex released my hand immediately.

"Come in."

A guard entered carrying a small envelope.

"Sir, this was found in the west wing."

Alex took it.

The moment he saw the handwriting, all the colour left his face.

"What is it?" I asked.

He didn't answer.

I stood and reached for the envelope, but he pulled it away.

"Alex."

"Go back to your room, Bella."

I stared at him.

"Are you serious?"

"Please."

That stopped me.

He rarely said please.

I looked at the envelope again. My father's name was written across the front.

And beneath it, in smaller handwriting, were four words.

For the son we lost.

I felt the room grow cold.

"Alex, what does that mean?"

He closed his eyes.

For a moment, he looked like a little boy who had been caught doing something he couldn't explain.

Then he opened the envelope.

Inside was a photograph.

A photograph of two little boys standing beside a swimming pool.

One was Alessandro.

The other had his face.

Not similar features. Not a resemblance.

His face.

Alex turned the photograph over.

On the back, someone had written a date and a single sentence.

One of you was never supposed to survive.

I looked at him.

He looked at me.

Neither of us spoke.

Then my phone vibrated.

Another message from my father's number.

Bella, darling, there's something I need you to understand.

I stared at the screen, my heart pounding.

The next message arrived before I could breathe.

Alessandro Moretti is not the boy you fell in love with.

I slowly raised my eyes to his.

He was already looking at me.

And for the first time since I'd known him, I couldn't tell whether the fear in his eyes was for me or for himself.