Chapter 82

Isabella

The impact still rang through my skull, and I could feel my insides scream. It was the kind of sound you didn’t just hear—you felt it. Deep, jarring, bone to skin in the worst ways possible.

One second, we were in the car, bathed in the intense silence that always followed our conversations, and next, the world had turned sideways. Glass was raining like violent glitter, and metal crunched around us like paper caught in a storm.

My lungs forgot how to breathe. The force threw me forward, the seatbelt biting deep into my shoulder. My head knocked against the side window, but the pain barely registered because the moment the car stilled, when everything finally stopped moving, I turned and saw Alessandro slumped beside me.

Even when the car stopped moving, my heart didn’t. It kept racing, crashing against my ribs like it didn’t know how to stop. My hands trembled in my lap, blood rushing to my ears so loud I couldn’t hear anything else—not even