**Chapter five: The bridge**

**Celine's POV**

Darkness came first, it wasn't the kind behind closed eyes, the kind that still let in a little light around the edges. It pressed in from every direction at once, thick and total, like it had weight to it.

I came back to myself slowly, one piece at a time, the pain got to me first before anything else did. My wrists burned every time I moved, rubbing raw against something tight around them. Every breath I tried to take felt trapped before it reached my lungs.

I shifted slightly, and my shoulder hit something hard.

Wood, I thought at first. Then I realized it wasn't wood at all.

A box. I was inside a box.

I could feel the heat of my own breath bouncing straight back into my face.

The thought hit me all at once, and the panic came right behind it, faster than I could brace for. I jerked hard against whatever was holding my wrists, some instinct in me refusing to just lie there and accept it.

The restraints didn't loosen. If anything, they bit down harder, cutting deeper into skin that was already raw.

Then, above me, something scraped.

Metal groaned, slow and heavy.

Light cut through the darkness so suddenly that I squeezed my eyes shut against it, the brightness stabbing straight through whatever ache had settled behind them. Cold air rushed in over me, a shock against my skin after the trapped heat I'd been breathing.

Slowly, the shapes started to sharpen. I could see the edges of where I was lying.

Then I recognized it.

It was the same trunk.

The memory hit me before I could stop it, I understood, I wasn't just trapped somewhere.

I was inside the same trunk I'd seen Marcus died earlier.

The guards had me pulled out before I even understood where we were going. I fought them anyway, dragging my heels against the gravel, twisting hard enough that one of them cursed under his breath and tightened his grip until it bruised.

The wind hit me the moment they dragged me onto the bridge. Rough hands forced me against the railing as thick ropes bit into my wrists, binding them to the cold metal. My feet slipped toward the edge, leaving me suspended over the drop. I twisted my head, trying to see past the men holding me, and that's when I saw them.

Diego stood near the railing, coat buttoned against the cold, Bianca stood beside him, arms crossed, unbothered. And a few steps back, half in shadow, his mother.

Seeing all three of them together like that told me everything before anyone said a word.

I screamed then, a raw, useless sound that the wind tore apart almost as soon as it left me. I understood, all at once, exactly what this was.

"You're really going to kill me," I said, my voice breaking apart even as I forced the words out. "You're going to throw me in and let the water do the rest."

Nobody answered me directly. The guards hauled me onto the railing at the far end of the bridge and forced me down, looping rope around my wrists hard enough that it bit instantly.

I looked down once and wished I hadn't. The river was churning below, fast and dark, slamming against the rocks.

"Just kill her already," Bianca said, somewhere behind me. "It will look like a suicide. No one will ask questions."

"I'd rather watch her suffer first."

"How can you do this?" My voice cracked. "I'm your wife, Diego."

He walked closer and crouched down so we were eye level. The rope dug in tighter with the movement, and I held my breath, afraid that flinching would make it worse.

"I have a family to protect," he said. "And the Salvatore legacy doesn't have room for you. Or your child."

For a second, I couldn't breathe.

The last words echoed through me louder than the river below.

He knew it all along.

“You… you knew I was pregnant?”

He said nothing.

He didn't have to.

The silence was enough.

I twisted against the rope, some useless instinct trying to shield a stomach that wasn't even showing yet.

He knew I was afraid of deep water. I'd told him once, years ago, half-joking, about freezing up as a kid the moment I couldn't feel the bottom of a pool. He'd remembered. Of course he had.

"Time's up," Diego said, flat. "The papers will call it a tragic suicide. A wife who couldn't handle marriage."

Bianca leaned in close enough that only I could hear. "Honestly, it's kinder this way. No one remembers you as a failure. No one remembers you at all."

"He'll do this to you too," I said. "One day you'll disappoint him. And you'll be the one tied to this railing."

Diego's mother stepped forward. She kicked a loose stone near my hand, sending grit into my eyes.

"If you have any dignity left, die quietly," she told me. Then, to the others: "Finish it before someone sees."

"Please," I said, louder now, my throat raw. "Someone, help me…"

I screamed until it hurt. Nothing answered except the river.

"Don't make a scene," Diego said, like I was the one being unreasonable. "Just make it look right."

I searched his face one last time for something — anything that meant this wasn't real. But he didn't give me that.

He nodded to someone behind him. I heard a blade cut through rope.

I closed my eyes.

The rope above me snapped, and my body dropped before my mind caught up to what was happening.

For one impossible second, I was weightless.

My stomach lurched as the world disappeared beneath me. The bridge rushed away overhead. Wind tore the scream from my throat as I fell, the river racing up to meet me.

Then I hit the water before the scream finished leaving my throat.

It was colder than anything I'd ever felt, cold enough to steal the air straight out of my lungs. Water forced its way into my nose and mouth as the current pulled me under, I fought it uselessly, reaching for something that wasn't there.

The river was stronger than I was. Maybe Diego was right. Maybe this was where it ended.

The dark kept pulling me down.

Then, just as I stopped fighting it, something closed around my waist, strong enough to hold against the current.

I couldn't tell what it was. My mind had gone somewhere far away from my body.

Whatever had grabbed me wasn't pulling me under. It felt like being caught by something out of nowhere.

My head broke the surface. I dragged in a breath and immediately choked on it, coughing hard enough that my whole chest burned. Someone was holding me above the water. Voices drifted around me, distant, drowned out under the roar of the river and the pounding in my own skull.

"Boss! We've got her!"

Diego?... I couldn't tell who'd said it.

I was pulled up onto something solid and cold. The impact knocked another cough out of me, and I rolled onto my side as water spilled from my mouth. I kept coughing, each breath scraping raw against my throat, while the grey sky above me blurred into shapes I couldn't focus on.

Only then did I realize someone was still holding me. A steady grip at my waist, keeping me upright. A hand brushed the wet hair off my face and tilted my chin up.

"Call the doctor. Now." The voice was deep, even, the kind of voice that never had to ask twice.

"She must not die."

I blinked hard, trying to bring the world into focus. All I could make out was the dark outline of a man kneeling over me, blotting out the grey sky behind him.

I wanted to know who he was.

I wanted to move.

My body wouldn't listen either.

The last of the light faded out above me. It didn't feel peaceful. It felt like I'd just been pulled out of danger and dropped straight into another.