Chapter four

Drina’s POV

The following morning, they transported me without any explanation.

Two guards come to my door and inform me to follow them. They speak politely; their hands remain by their weapons. I pass them by long passages till we get to another section of the property. This wing is more isolated, quiet and has thicker doors and fewer windows. All this is intentional, as though it were constructed to be observed yet not perceived.

Here is your room, one of the guards says, opening the door.

The room is bigger than the previous one, there is a large bed, a desk, and a window, which looks out at the garden, enclosed with high walls. The beauty has been counterfeiting, as a lie designed to cushion a cage.

"Am I allowed outside?" I ask.

"No," he replies.

The door shuts after them with a resounding bang.

I remain silent for a long time and hear the silence. I know I am being watched. I can feel it through the tightening of my skin, through the fact that every move I do is calculated. Dino does not have to be in the room to make his presence count on me. I assume his eyes also track me across the cameras and guards as they are waiting to know what I am going to do.

I say to myself, “he is not going to break me.”

But promise taketh no attention.

Hours pass. No one speaks to me. Someone does not tell me why I am still alive. Hunger chews me, and anger burns still higher. I walk around the room, repeating all the words Dino said, all the glances he cast my way. Instead of being a threat, he is dangerous because he makes decisions.

It is what is most horrifying to me.

I am rudely awakened by the voice of shouting.

Then gunfire erupts.

Initially, I believed it to be my imagination, but the cracking noises became nearer and clearer. Bells ring in the estate, very strong and desperate. I go down to the window, and I find men running over the grounds with weapons up. Smoke curls into the air.

A crash of my heart against my ribs.

"No," I breathe. "No, no, no."

The door breaks open, and one of the guards runs in.

Get away at the window, he says.

"What's happening?" I demand.

"We're under attack," he says. "Get down."

I cannot move before the glass breaks. I scream and run as the shards fall and cut my arm. The guard yells into his radio and drives me against the wall.

“There is gunfire in the halls.” Someone yells in pain. I can feel the floor shaking under my feet because of the sound of explosions.

"I'm going to die here," I sob.

The guard pulls me over the door. "Move!"

We enter the hall, and the pandemonium breaks out. Men come past, yelling commands. The marble floor is bloody. One of the bodies is close to the staircase, and it is motionless.

My legs shake, and I might pass out.

Then, I am suddenly gripped by someone, and the guard who was on me is tackled. He crashes on the ground, fighting to handle a weapon. I fell up, paralysed with fear.

One of the men swivels around with his gun.

I close my eyes.

After that, a body goes crashing into me, and I am on the ground as people shoot over my head.

"Get down!" a voice growls.

I open my eyes and find Dino over me.

He gets hold of me by the arm and roughly lifts me. His facial expression is set in concentration, and he is composed in panic.

"Are you hurt?" he asks quickly.

"I don't know," I stammer.

He does not wait for an answer. He puts me on his arm and draws me down a side passage as bullets fall on the walls behind us.

"Why are you saving me?" I shout over the noise.

"Move," he snaps.

We have broken into a safe room, and the door shuts behind us. The shots become muffled out there. The wall collapses against me, and I shake up and down.

Dino is now standing in front of my hard breathing eyes, scanning the room, until they finally rest on me.

"You should be dead," I whisper.

"So should you," he replies.

I stare at him, rage and bewilderment at each other in my heart. "You didn't have to do that."

"Yes," he says. "I did."

The answer makes no sense.

Guards come in, and injury and damage are reported. Dino issues commands without a second thought, and his voice is as though the commotion outside does not bother him.

As they go, the silence of the room prevails.

"You could have let me die," I say. "That would have been easier."

He examines me for a very long time. Nothing in this is easy anymore.

He turns and goes before I can answer.

They later brought me back to my room. My arm is stitched up, and still the terror persists. I am sitting at the rim of the bed, and I am revisiting the scene where Dino rescued me from a situation. His hand was tight, protective, approaching instinct.

I despise the fact that it meant something.

I can hear voices outside my door and go nearer, putting my ear to the wall.

One of the men says she was nearly killed.

Another responds by saying she was not supposed to be there. "This war is escalating."

The first voice wonders, Her parents' case never should be buried.

My breath catches.

"What do you mean?" someone asks.

The voice is a continuation that was approved in one of the early expansions of Fazio. He did not give it an order, but he did not say anything to stop it.

The world tilts.

My parents.

I open the door and do not know how to resist myself. Dino is in the hallway addressing Lucas. They both turn to me, startled.

"Say it again," I whisper. "Say what you just said."

Dino’s expression hardens. “Go back inside.”

“Tell me the truth,” I demand. “Did my parents die because of you?”

Silence stretches between us, thick and unbearable.

“I didn’t pull the trigger,” Dino says slowly.

My chest tightens. “But you knew.”

He does not answer.

Tears blur my vision, but my voice stays steady as the truth settles in.

“So you didn’t pull the trigger,” I whisper. “But you let it happen.”

The words hang in the air, heavy and unforgiving.

Dino looks at me, and for the first time, he has no defence.

The war outside fades, replaced by something far more dangerous.

The truth.