Chapter 28: Salvatore

Chapter 28: Salvatore
Three days. Three fucking days. That’s how long it’s been since I pulled her out of that mansion, bleeding and silent and barely holding herself together. Since Gio carried her like she weighed nothing. Since she looked me in the eyes and said nothing—just locked herself behind a bedroom door and didn’t come out again.

She didn’t want me in the room that first night. She said, “I want to sleep alone.” She didn’t even look at me when she said it. She looked at the floor, like saying it out loud was the most she could give me. So I nodded. I let her go. She locked the door behind her. And I’ve been listening to that lock ever since.

She only comes out to eat. Never when I’m in the kitchen. Never when anyone else is around. She waits until the house is quiet, then pads in like a ghost, grabs whatever’s warm, and disappears again. She doesn’t speak. Not even to Elio. Not even to Gio. And definitely not to me.

I sit outside her door sometimes. Not every night—she’d know. I don’t want her to feel watched. But I just… can’t help it. I don’t sleep anyway. I sit in the hallway and stare at the wall and try not to ask myself if this is what it feels like to lose someone who’s still breathing. I thought the hard part was getting her back. Turns out the hard part is having her this close and still not being able to touch her.

I don’t know how I ignored her for so long. All those years under one roof, pretending like I didn’t care. Pretending she didn’t undo me with one look. Now? Now I can’t go one second without feeling her absence like a blade under my ribs. If this is even a fraction of what she felt when I pulled away—God. I should spend the rest of my life making it up to her. And I will. If she ever lets me close again.

Today, Elio came to my office. He didn’t knock. He never does. He sat down across from me and waited. I didn’t ask what he wanted. I already knew. “She’s not going to come around just because you sit there like a dog waiting for scraps,” he said calmly. I didn’t answer. “She needs something real. Something that isn’t guilt and grief and your fucking haunted eyes.” Still, I said nothing. So he leaned forward, folded his hands, and said, “She has a private Instagram.”

That got my attention.

“She doesn’t use her name,” he added. “But it’s her. She posts writing. Mostly poetry. Sad shit. Soft shit. She started it when she was seventeen. I found it years ago.” I stared at him. “She’s not going to talk to you,” he said. “But maybe she’s already telling you everything. You just haven’t been listening in the right place.”

I didn’t thank him. But I looked it up. I found it in seconds. @easthisownheart. No profile picture. No name. No tags. Just words. Hundreds of them. Poems about wanting to disappear. About being trapped. About a voice she used to love that learned how to wound her. About a boy she shouldn’t love but does anyway.

I didn’t scroll far before I found this one:
“He says I’m safe. But I still lock the door.”
I felt it in my throat. Like something I’d swallowed whole a long time ago finally cutting its way back out. I followed the account. Liked the post. Didn’t expect her to see it. But that night, a new one went up:
“There’s a voice outside the door. It says home. I don’t know if I believe it. But I still listen.”
She knew. She knew it was me. And she was still listening.

We got new intel this morning. One of Angelo’s old houses had been vacated three days before the raid. Hidden property—off books, off radar. Took a week to track it. Gio and two others swept it. They found pictures. Dozens. Printed. Archived. Sorted. All of Eden. Some were from years ago. Some recent. All invasive. Some looked like surveillance. Some looked like obsession. I stared at them on the table, the ink bleeding into my palms, and felt something in me go cold.

It wasn’t just a marriage deal. This had been planned for years. They watched her. Followed her. Chose her. And Sergio knew. Sergio helped.

That night, I went back to the safe house and didn’t go upstairs. I sat in the kitchen, stared at the fridge, and thought about the first time I saw her—curled in Sergio’s arms, clinging to his collar, hiding from the world. I thought he was protecting her. I was wrong. He was preparing her. And I let it happen.

Tomorrow, I’ll call a meeting with my capos. Some of Sergio’s men have flipped. Some haven’t. We’re at war whether they admit it or not. But tonight, I’m here. Outside her door. She hasn’t come out all day. The lock is still turned. But I hear her moving inside. And I hope—God, I hope—she’s writing. Because if she won’t let me hold her, I’ll take her words. And if she won’t speak to me yet, I’ll keep listening. Until she does.