Chapter 96 -
“No?” Nia repeated. “Alex is dead. The man you were looking for is dead. How does that not change things?”
“Because we do not know who killed him,” Leo said. “Or why. For all we know, whoever killed Andrea also killed Alex to cover their tracks. The Don still wants answers. He still wants justice for his daughter. Alex being dead does not give him that.”
“So I am still the bait,” Nia said bitterly. “Still the leverage to draw out a killer who apparently does not care enough about me to come forward.”
“Yes,” Leo said.
Nia laughed. It came out harsh and broken, edged with something that might have been hysteria if she let it take over. “This is insane. All of this is completely insane. I dated Alex for a year. One year of my life. And now he is dead and I am trapped here and none of this makes any sense.”
“I know,” Leo said quietly.
“Do you?” Nia challenged. “Do you actually know what this is like? To have your entire life destroyed because of someone else’s choices? To be punished for crimes you did not commit, for connections you did not choose?”
“Yes,” Leo said. There was something raw in his voice now, something that cut through his usual control. “I do know what that is like.”
They stared at each other across the room. Leo still by the door, Nia curled on the window seat. The space between them felt bigger than it was, filled with everything unsaid, everything that had happened between them and everything that never would.
“I am sorry,” Leo said finally. “About Alex. I know you cared about him once.”
“Once,” Nia agreed. “Before he cheated on me. Before he got me tangled up in your world. Before everything fell apart.” She pulled her knees to her chest, making herself smaller. “But he did not deserve to die. Whatever he did, whatever he was involved in, he did not deserve that.”
“No one deserves murder,” Leo said. “But people get murdered anyway. That is the world we live in.”
“Your world,” Nia corrected. “Not mine. I never asked to be part of this. I never wanted anything to do with the Cimmera or Don Emilio or you.”
Something flickered across Leo’s face at that last word. Something that looked almost like pain before his mask slammed back into place.
“I know,” he said. “But you are part of it now. Whether you wanted it or not.”
“For five more days,” Nia said. “Then what? The Don takes me away and you let him because you could not find the person who killed Andrea in time?”
“I am still looking,” Leo said. His hands clenched tighter at his sides. “I have not stopped looking.”
“But you are running out of time,” Nia said. “We both are.”
“Yes,” Leo admitted.
The silence that fell between them was heavy, suffocating. Nia could hear her own heartbeat, could hear the distant sounds of the mansion settling around them, could hear everything except the words she actually wanted Leo to say.
That he would fight for her. That he would not let the Don take her. That the kiss they shared meant something, that she meant something.
But Leo did not say any of those things. He just stood by the door, looking at her with those gray eyes that gave nothing away, his face carefully blank.
“Is that all?” Nia asked finally. “Is that why you came here? To tell me about Alex?”
“Yes,” Leo said.
“Then you can go,” Nia said. She turned back to the window, dismissing him. “I would like to be alone.”
“Nia,” Leo started.
“Go,” she said again, harder this time. “Please. Just go.”
For a moment, she thought he might argue. Might step further into the room, might try to say something that would make this whole impossible situation make sense.
But he did not.
The door opened. Then closed. And Nia was alone again with the news that Alex Navarro was dead and her world was tilting on its axis and nothing would ever be the same.
She pressed her forehead against the cold glass of the window, watching her reflection stare back at her. Ghost-pale, eyes too wide, mouth pressed into a thin line.
Alex was dead.
The words kept repeating in her mind, over and over, like if she thought them enough times they might start to feel real.
But they did not feel real. They felt like another impossible thing in a series of impossible things that had become her life.
And somewhere in this mansion, Leo was walking away from her again. Delivering devastating news and then leaving her to process it alone. Keeping his distance like it was easier than admitting he might actually care.
Nia closed her eyes and let the darkness behind her eyelids swallow her whole.
Alex was dead.
And she was still here.
Still counting down.
Still waiting.
Still hoping for something she knew would never come.
~~
The box was in the back of the closet, hidden behind shoes that did not fit right and dresses Nia had never worn. She had not looked at it since the first week of her captivity, when Rosa had unpacked her meager belongings and asked if there was anything Nia wanted displayed.
Nia had said no. Had shoved the box deep into the darkness where she would not have to think about what was inside.
But now, sitting on the floor with her back against the bed and Alex’s death echoing in her mind, she pulled it out.
The cardboard was worn at the corners, the lid slightly dented from being moved too many times. Across the top, written in Nia’s own handwriting from what felt like a lifetime ago, was a single word: Momentum.
She stared at it for a long moment, her fingers tracing the letters. It had been a joke between her and Isadora. A play on the word memento, because Nia could never spell anything correctly and Isadora had laughed so hard when Nia had written it wrong that they decided to keep it. A box of momentum. Things that pushed you forward instead of holding you back.
Except everything in this box did the opposite.
Nia lifted the lid slowly, like it might explode if she moved too fast. The smell hit her immediately. Old paper and cheap perfume and the faint scent of the lavender sachets she used to keep in her apartment drawers. It smelled like her old life. Like the person she had been before Alex left her, before the Cimmera took her, before everything fell apart.