Chapter 137

Delilah

I stayed longer than I meant to.

It wasn’t because I wanted to, but it was because this was the one place where I could be who I was, where I could remove the mask of strength that I was forced to wear, where I could just sit without Giovanni’s men lurking around me.

I still don’t know what he did to Lysandra, but I knew this. If he had her locked up then she was going to come out as messed up as I did. She was going to come out losing herself and she wouldn’t understand why. To make matters worse, he wouldn’t even care. He was the one who wanted her to become another weapon. He was preparing her in case I failed.

My fingers brushed over the rough stone of her grave, the name Marissa De Luca etched into it as if that was all she’d ever been. But to me, she was so much more. My mother. My ghost. My reason. “You are the one reason that I’m standing. You know, sometimes I find it harder to breathe without knowing that this is the one thing that I’