*Leo*
The world came back to me slowly.
My head throbbed with every pulse of my heartbeat, my body aching from the brutal way I’d been tossed around.
I opened my eyes, squinting against the dim light that filtered into the room. The air was thick with tension, suffocating, and the first thing I realized was that I wasn’t alone.
Maria.
I blinked again, more sharply this time, and found her sitting beside me, just inches away. Her wrists shackled in front of her. She was looking at me with a strange, almost sad expression.
For a moment, I couldn’t process it. My thoughts were too scrambled, too filled with the memories of Bianca, the helplessness I felt in the moments before I lost consciousness.
And then, the horrible truth, the knowledge that I hadn’t been able to protect her. That she was alone and in labor, and there was no telling whether she was okay.
