The envelope lay on my dresser.

Marco had handed it to me, but I hadn't dared touch it. The photo inside it had ripped open something inside me that I had tried so damn hard to bury.

I thought I had turned my body into a weapon and my eyes had forgotten how to cry. My hands knew how to shoot, disarm, and leave a bruise without a flicker of hesitation. But now, every single part of me felt like it was crumbling from the inside out.

And all beacause of that photo of Alex lying still with blood caked on his temple. Surrounded by tubes and machines.

I tried to tell myself it was fake. Maybe it was some sort of prank that Dan and Mateo planned to use to mess with my head.

But when I brought it out to peruse it again, this picture looked real.

It was him.

I stared at the photo again and propped it against the mirror. Its cornes curled like it wanted to shrink away from me too. I snatched it up, then shoved it into a drawer, as if I could just stuff the memories in there with it.

"You can't go to him " Marco said from the doorway. His voice was calm, but I knew that tone. The one that always came right before a warning.

"I never said I would."

"You didn't have to."

I stood up, turning to face him. "This isn't your decision."

"And it's not yours alone either," he shot back. "You're not just Millie anymore. You represent something greater. You're a force. You've got eyes on you. You're on every radar. Going back to Morales territory will make you a target."

I scoffed, walking across the room to pour myself a glass of water, my hand shaking.

"What if I told you it was already a trap?" he added. "What if Mateo leaked that photo? What if they know exactly how to twist their knife into you, and they're just counting on your loyalty to Alex to do the rest of the work for them?"

I stopped, the glass halfway to my lips.

He stepped closer. "They know you. They know what Alex means to you. They are only trying to use him to weaken your resolve, Millie. Try to see the bigger picture"

I looked at the only picture I could see on my mirror. The first man to hold out his hand to me. The man who had protected me from danger and seen every shade of my weakness. Then I looked back at Marco.

Marco and I were similar in that we made a decision to leave the Morales. But that decision was borne out of different circumstances. I am not Marco. As much as I'd like to see the Morales through his lens and view my attachment to Alex as a threat, I couldn't help but suppress whatever hate that Marco had been trying to transfer to me with empathy.

Alex was not Don Morales.

I sat back down, letting the silence spread between us like smoke.

"You really miss him don't you?" he sounded like he was affirming a fact instead of asking a question.

I wanted to deny it. I wanted to rip the softness out of myself and throw it back at him. But my mind had already started spinning.

I remembered how Alex held me the first night I told him about Dan.

I remembered his hands healing my knee in the warehouse on the night of the shootout.

I also remembered the way Alex’s face fell when he saw the videos of me with Javi. How hurt he was not because he hated me but because he loved me. And I had wrecked that love with one stupid mistake.

"Sometimes I wonder," I whispered.

Marco raised a brow. "Wonder what?"

"If I'm still her. The girl who once loved him. The girl who wanted to build a life, not burn one."

"Maybe she's still there," he said. "But she's already buried under the ruins of every man who ever tried to destroy her."

My eyes met his.

"What if she wants to claw her way back up?"

Marco stepped forward, placed a hand on my shoulder, holding my gaze.

"Then she better not die trying."

I nodded slowly.

That night, sleep was impossible. I stared at the ceiling for hours, counting the cracks in the molding, timing my heartbeat as if it could give me a reason not to go.

But my gut was screaming louder than reason.

At midnight, I pulled open the drawer and stared at the photo again. My fingers trembled, not from fear, but from the weight of care I still carried.

I wasn't supposed to care anymore.

I wasn't supposed to love him still.

So I justified the feeling that brewed in my heart as human empathy.

Whatever it is I was about to do would be out of gratitued for how he took me in and cared for me. It would also be some sort of consolation for how I betrayed him. No more. No less.

And after that. I will continue to live a new life, free from him, his Mafia family and free from Dan.

At two in the morning, I slipped into my black jeans and a leather jacket. I swiped one of Nico's portable pistols and strapped the thing to my waist.

I also slid a fake ID that I had previously found in an abandoned storage locker in Nico's weaponry into my bra.

My hair was tied back into a sleek ponytail.

Tonight, I would pay Alex a visit. And if this was a goddamn trap, I was determined not to be a prey.