All Chapters of CALAVERA: The Mafia’s Caged Bride : Chapter 151 - Chapter 160

THE BODY~ANYA POV~The hostel room smelled like industrial cleaner and someone else's cigarette smoke that had seeped into the walls over years of transient occupants who didn't care enough to complain, and I was sitting on the edge of a bed that was more springs than mattress, staring at the tiny television mounted on the wall because I couldn't sleep, I hadn't slept since yesterday afternoon when I had climbed through that window and left my brother behind to face monsters with nothing but his fists and his stupid, beautiful bravery.Marcello was asleep finally, curled up on the other bed with his toy hugged to his chest and his face relaxed in that way only children can manage, that complete surrender to unconsciousness that comes from not yet understanding that the world is full of things that want to hurt you, and I envied him that innocence even as I kept glancing over to make sure he was still breathing, still there, still mine.The Portuguese morning news was playing on low v

{SIX MONTHS LATER}~ANYA POV~Porto in winter felt like living inside a bruise, all grey skies and cold rain that bled into your bones and never quite left, and I had been here for six months now, six months of scrubbing hotel bathroom floors on my hands and knees while rich tourists complained about thread counts and water pressure, six months of being Ana Silva instead of Anya Torres or Maria Santos or any of the other names I had worn like masks over the last three and a half years.The apartment was different from the one in Lisbon, smaller somehow even though it probably had the same square footage, just a single room with a kitchenette that barely functioned and a bathroom where the shower only gave you hot water if you ran it for exactly three minutes before getting in, but it was mine, or at least it was Ana Silva's, and that was close enough to the same thing that I had stopped caring about the difference.Hotel housekeeping paid less than the night cleaning jobs I had worked

THE SCHOOL VISIT~CÉSAR POV~The preschool was painted in cheerful yellows and blues that hurt to look at in the morning sun, all bright primary colors and cartoon animals on the walls and the sound of children's laughter spilling out through open windows, and I was standing across the street with my hands shoved in my pockets and my heart doing something strange in my chest that might have been nervousness if I'd still been capable of feeling normal human emotions.'Jardim Infantil Estrela,' the sign read, 'Star Preschool,' and there was a small playground visible through the chain-link fence where maybe fifteen kids were running around during what I assumed was morning recess, climbing on equipment that looked like it had been built sometime in the last decade, chasing each other in games that probably had rules I would never understand.I watched them for ten minutes, scanning faces, looking for dark hair and features that might match mine, trying not to look like a predator stalki

THE HOMECOMING~ANYA POV~I was running late picking up Marcello from school because the hotel had me deep-cleaning a room where some bachelor party had apparently tried to recreate a scene from a disaster movie, and by the timeI got to Jardim Infantil Estrela the other parents were already gone and Teacher Sofia was standing at the gate with Marcello, both of them looking patient but slightly annoyed in that way that said I'd done this too many times before."Sorry, sorry," I said breathlessly as I reached them, signing the pickup sheet with hands that were still raw from scrubbing bathroom tiles. "Work ran late.""It's fine, Sra. Silva," Teacher Sofia said with a smile that was professional but tired. "Marcello was very good today. Weren't you, querido?"Marcello nodded sky-high, already grabbing my hand and pulling me toward home because he knew the routine, knew that after school we went straight back to the apartment and he got his snack and then we did his homework which at thre

THE GHOST~ANYA POV~The five minutes pushed and bent and twisted into something that felt like hours but was probably closer to twenty, and I sat there on the floor with my back against the wall and the knife growing heavy in my hand while César and Marcello played with plastic dinosaurs on my cheap rug like this was normal, like this was something we did every day, like the last three and a half years hadn't happened.Marcello was in the middle of explaining a very complicated story about how Rex the T-Rex had to fight a bad Stegosaurus to save the village of good dinosaurs when I finally found my voice again."Time's up," I said, and it came out rough and wrong but at least it came out at all.César looked up at me, his hands still holding the blue T-Rex that Marcello had handed him, and for a second I saw something flicker across his face that might have been disappointment or might have been understanding."Of course," he said quietly.He set the dinosaur down carefully, like it