My body locked in place, breath trapped somewhere deep in my chest. It felt like my lungs had forgotten how to work.
Something inside me snapped—my chest tightened violently. A sound tried to come out of me, but it wasn’t a scream or a cry. It was something worse. Something broken beyond repair.
Vincenzo stepped directly in front of me.
His hand grabbed my face, fingers digging into my cheeks so hard I could feel pressure against my teeth, against bone.
“That’s enough,” he said low and cold. “Stop this performance.”
I stared at him, blinking slowly. His face was empty. No anger that made sense. No remorse. No grief. Just… nothing.
“I almost believed you,” he said flatly. “For a second, I almost felt sorry for that dead little act of yours.”
His thumb dragged along my jaw, rough and deliberate. It burned.
“But then the hospital sent everything. Videos of Gabriel smiling. Sitting up. Laughing. The doctor confirmed you twisted the story. Said you manipulated him. That you let him act sick just to get attention.”
A lie.
Her lie. Lena’s lie.
My eyes drifted past him without thinking—to the stairs.
And there she was.