Fifty

Cassie:

I couldn't sleep after Renzo left.

Every sound in the penthouse made me jump. The creak of floorboards, the hum of the heating system, even the distant sound of traffic outside. Luca had quadrupled security, but it did not matter. Renzo had walked through our defenses like they were paper.

And he had threatened my mother.

I sat curled up in Luca's bed, wrapped in one of his shirts, staring at the journal entry my father had written the day before he died. The words blurred as tears filled my eyes for what felt like the hundredth time.

Remember the lighthouse baby girl. Remember our secret place.

I wanted to remember. I wanted to so badly it physically hurt. But every time I tried to reach for the memory it slipped away like smoke through my fingers.

The bedroom door opened quietly. Luca stepped in, his hair damp from a shower, wearing only sweatpants. Even exhausted and tense he was beautiful in that dangerous untouchable way of his.

You should be sleeping, he said softly.

I