𝐊𝐈𝐍𝐆 𝐎𝐅 𝐕𝐄𝐍𝐆𝐄𝐀𝐍𝐂𝐄

Chapter Sixty-Eight

ADELINE
MEADOWS

The pain coursing through me was a slow, merciless drain, as if every breath was siphoning the life out of my bones. I had been healing, inching closer to the light, feeling the weight lift from my chest, and for a fleeting moment, I thought I was finally free. But tonight, tonight had ripped it all away, dragging me back into the darkness.

It will haunt me, eat at my soul, burrow deep into the cracks I thought had healed.

I wasn't there for Nana's funeral. The one person who mattered, whose love was pure and untainted by the filth of this life. And her final words—her last breath—were about me. A whisper from the grave that I would never get to answer. The guilt wrapped around me like chains, pulling me under.

We indeed did not survive the Great War. No, we are its casualties, ghosts walking among the wreckage, forever marked by the blood spilled, the promises broken, and the weight of the dead we couldn't mourn.

I was so hollow.

Leave Adeline everything I own.

She was my daughter, Bridget. Not yours.

The letter from Valentino weighed heavy in my hands, every word inked with Nana's last breath, as though she had poured her soul into the paper with the final remnants of life. I could see her, frail and fading, gripping the pen with trembling fingers, determined to speak to me one last time. She was dying, but she wrote me a letter. The darkness of that thought clung to me like a shadow, suffocating.

I read it twice already.

I will read it every night.

It was past midnight, and Luciano hadn't come back. He said he would, but the clock ticked on, each minute stretching into an eternity. Downstairs, everyone sat, their presence a distant hum compared to the storm raging inside me. But I couldn't stay there with them.

I went to Luciano's office, sitting on the cold, unforgiving floor, clutching the letter as if it were the last anchor tethering me to sanity. Beside me was the box filled with what remained of Nana's memories, a shrine to a life that no longer felt like mine.

Her necklace, the one that led me to Luciano.

The delicate ballerina shoes she gave me, a reminder of my childhood.

Our photographs, capturing moments of what was once happiness.

Her jewelry, once sparkling with life, now dull reminders of a past I was being told to forget.

Valentino had handed me the letter with icy indifference, his eyes clearer now, cleansed of the drugs that once clouded them. Maybe Adrian was good for him. His body was stronger, no longer pale and shaking. But there was no warmth left in him for me. Not even a hug, just the cold shoulder of a man who had left his past behind—maybe, just maybe, I should do the same.

The words in Nana's letter echoed in my mind, louder than the silence of the room.

"Burn them, Adeline. Leave them. They're not worth it."

I thought of my father, shattered by the loss of his mother. I had sent him a text, a small gesture of comfort—something I hadn't done since I left Vegas. But before he could respond, I shut off my phone, cutting the last tie to a life I no longer wanted.

Dear Addie,
You were always the only one who understood me, the only one I connected with in that family. I'm on my last breath, baby, and you're the only one I'm grieving for. I'm sad you left me, but I'm happy you found a new family. My only wish for you is to burn everything. Yes, burn your past, baby. Forget me. Forget New York. Las Vegas is your home now. We were never good enough for you. And I wouldn't have let them treat you the way they did. Don't grieve for me—be happy. The last person holding you back is gone. Please, Addie, don't blame yourself, because if you do, I'll never forgive you. I love you. If you weren't your mother's favorite, you were always mine.