Camilla's POV...
Amelia's words—I'll paint these walls with your blood—echoed in the hollow spaces of my mind, but they were already being drowned out by another, more insistent voice. The one that kept repeating, a broken record of my own inadequacy:
I don't know. I don't know. I don't know...
She was right. I know nothing about him. Nothing real.
The thought circled, a vulture waiting for the last signs of life to fade.
How many times had I been inside him yesterday? How many hours had I spent wrapped around his body, counting the frantic beats of his heart, memorizing the raw, guttural sounds he made when he finally came undone?
And I never once asked why he was shot.
What else did I know?
Nothing. Just that he waited for me twenty-one years. That his mother died when he was nine, leaving a wound I could sense but never truly understand. That he has a sister who despises me. That his wealth could buy entire city blocks.
Shut up.
