I wear his name like a scar.
Alessandro Rossi stole everything from me; my freedom, my future, the lie I told my father to keep him alive. He thinks I'm a tool to be used, a bride to be displayed, a Fraga to be broken. He thinks the ring on my finge...
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The sky was heavy with dark clouds, warning of an inevitable downpour.
The casket descended slowly, the dull scrape of the ropes cutting through the silence of the cemetery. No one moved, no one spoke; we were all bound to that moment, watching as Billy was lowered into the ground that would hold him forever.
My gaze drifted toward Rachel, Billy's wife, her skin looked pale, her eyes red and swollen from tears that refused to stop. She held her son, Anthony, close, her arms tight around his small frame as though clinging to him was the only way to keep from collapsing completely.
The boy's cheeks were streaked with tears, his lips trembling as confusion clouded his young features. He couldn't grasp why his father wouldn't come back, why the man who had been his entire world had vanished without reason. His cries broke through the murmurs of prayer, and each sound seemed to carve deeper into Rachel's grief.
Alessandro stood rigid beside me. His expression betrayed nothing, his jaw locked tight, his hands curled into fists at his sides.
To anyone else he looked like a statue carved from stone, untouched by the weight of loss that pressed on the rest of us. But I knew him. I felt the guilt radiating off him, so thick and so suffocating.
Billy had never belonged in Alessandro's world of vengeance and retribution, yet he had insisted on staying, on helping him, and now the grave before us bore the consequence of that choice.
The priest's words blurred in my ears, as if they were carried away on the wind before I could register them.
My focus held only on Rachel as the folded flag was placed into her trembling hands, her grip desperate as though it was the last piece of Billy she could keep.
The sobs that rose around us felt endless, each one stitching itself into the damp air. The entire family was breaking, every face wet with grief. Everyone except Alessandro.
His mask didn't falter, not once. His eyes, however, betrayed him each time they flickered to the casket. Beneath the blankness, I saw the agony tearing him apart.
He didn't cry, he didn't move, but in his silence I could feel the screams he held back. He stared so intently into that grave, as though willing the earth to give Billy back, as though sheer force could undo the finality of death.
Nothing answered him. Nothing ever could.
The crowd thinned after the ceremony ended, mourners slipping away under umbrellas, voices hushed as they left the cemetery.
I stayed where I was, close enough to reach him if he broke, but he remained fixed in place, his body unmoving, his eyes chained to the ground that had swallowed his friend.
