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It was hard not to feel like I was willingly walking into a prison cell and locking the door myself.

I’d slipped the ring back on. Not out of fear.

Out of something worse.

Hope.

And that was the real prison, wasn’t it?

The idea of declaring my independence from Sebastian was terrifying, but not as terrifying as him seeing me not wearing his ring. His mark.

Physically and mentally numb, I reached behind me and turned the nozzle.

I turned the water hotter, scrubbing harder.

Not to feel clean.

Just to feel something he hadn’t already taken from me.

Somewhere in the house, Sebastian was planning his next move.

And I’d just made mine.

I’d chosen him. Again.

CHAPTER 40

SEBASTIAN

Blood.

It was everywhere.

On the marble steps. Pooling in the grooves between the stones.

Spreading in a slow, dark tide toward the street.

And on my hands.

I stared down at them—at the deep crimson coating my fingers, filling the creases of my knuckles, drying in the lines of my palms. Beneath the fresh blood, the faded bruises from three nights ago were still visible. Yellowed and ugly. The skin over my right knuckles had barely knit back together before splitting open again.

My father lay at my feet.

His throat slashed. The attack so vicious it had almost decapitated him. His sightless eyes stared up at the pale morning sky. His body sprawled in an ignoble heap on the steps of the House of Diamanti.

I couldn’t remember how long I’d been standing here.

Seconds. Minutes.

I’d left Sabrina tangled in the sheets, her dark hair fanned across the pillow, the ring I’d forced onto her finger catching the first pale light of dawn. Warm. Safe. Mine.

And I was here.

I flexed my fingers. The blood had begun to cool. To thicken. It pulled at my skin under my fingernails.

“Sebastian!”

Rafaello's cry cut through the silence before I registered his footsteps. He'd rounded the corner at a near run and then stopped dead. “Dio mio. What happened? Sebastian—what the fuck happened?”