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to let him know he had no part in forcing me to be a bitch.
    “Not good enough,” he whispers to me, and I see the doleful note to his bright green eyes. “A woman so beautiful should only be loved. Never harmed. I intend to make you see that. I love you, Amelia, let me show you just what I will do.”
    My eyes water as he pledges a promise of something I cannot take. I have to go for air. I cannot tolerate the amount of love he has for more when I feel nothing but lustful greed to get a quick fuck and a beating heart. I think, of all my actions, this is my worst.  I’m toying with a man’s heart like I never had. I know how fragile my own is, so why is it okay to play with Lorenzo’s and think he’ll be just fine? It’s not okay, and I’m even more of a beast for assuming so.
    The air outside is like a cold bucket of water and I unravel. I mutter in broken Italian under my breath as I walk across the veranda away from the doorway to the kitchen, and I feel like I’m falling apart. I can be mean to my father and not care, but Lorenzo makes me feel;, he makes me feel like I should be a better person. Maybe that’s the only reason I didn’t stop him from coming with me. I needed him for verification that I could still feel something other than unbridled hatred to the world.
    “Hey,” Enzo’s soothing voice travels toward me. “What’s got you bolting away?”
    “Everything,” I admit feebly, and I rub the back of my hand over my face to rid the tears. “There is no going back from this now, Enzo. There’s no way to save me. This is me set for life now, you know that, right?”
    “It’s not,” he states, and even as I nod, he sticks to his word. “There is going to be something that will give you some sort of faith back.” He offers me such a sincere look, and I wish that was enough to move on from the pessimism I live with. “I don’t know when, but it will.”
    “I’m too far gone to be saved,” I murmur as shame fills me up, drowning me. “I don’t even deserve it, Enzo. What I’ve done...” I don’t finish, just shake my head in dismay, and feel that disappointment in myself take over. It wraps itself around me, and I feel like I’m suffocating within its tight squeeze. “It makes me more like Giovanni than anything. I don’t want to be like him.”
    “A monster wouldn’t be sorry,” Enzo says, and I look at him. “Monsters don’t feel, don’t care, and don’t repent.”
    His words trigger a spell of nostalgia. Zane reminded once that I was never the monster I thought I was. He believed in me, fought for my own self-worth, and built me up – only to tear me down. After all, the day Zane broke my heart and ended round two was the day I ceased to properly exist. But I never lost the belief that somewhere within me was a beacon of hope. A prospect of salvation. A likelihood of rescue. Now, I struggle even to smile. What hope do I have to dream of a better outlook?
    “You are not a monster,” he states again, this time with ample conviction lacing his every word.
    “You don’t know what I’ve done,” I defy him, dropping my gaze. “I am not the same sister that left.”
    “I wouldn’t expect you to be her.” He grants me the chance to be damaged without a second glance of regret. Enzo accepts that I will have changed, that I’m not the girl I was, but he looks at me with a heated demeanor. I feel a swirl of serenity come to live within me as I look back up. Enzo isn’t giving up on me and I see that all over his face. “I wish I had saved you. I wished we could have done more to find you, but Papà made sure you were nowhere to be found when really you were right under our noses. Amelia, I would have been there in a heartbeat, but the one time we got there, you weren’t around and nor was anything that would tie you to our Amalfi Coast home.”
    “You came for me?” I ask, trying not to sound so horrified.
    “Of course we did,” Enzo says, placing his arms around