I stayed in the courtyard long after everyone else had disappeared into the mansion. The floodlights still buzzed overhead, casting the blood on the stone in sharp, dark relief. No one had come to scrub it away. No one had even thrown sand over the worst of it. In any normal world, that stain would have been erased within minutes, hidden, forgotten. But this wasn’t a normal world. This was Dante’s world. And here, reminders were deliberate. They wanted the image burned into every mind: this is what happens when you fail. This is what happens when you betray. I wrapped my arms around myself, fingers pressing into my sides. The night had grown colder, but the chill barely registered. The shock I’d felt during the beating had already burned itself out, leaving behind something quieter. Something colder. Luca’s voice kept repeating in my head like a warning I couldn’t shake. That wasn’t the one. They had destroyed a man in front of all of us — broken his body, his dignity — just to wa
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