Potere | Book II ✓

xxxiii | the last dance

xxxiii | the last dance

a/n: posted this chapter 1 day early due to me being busy tomorrow. please read the ending a/n! thank you.

•• ━━━━━ ••●•• ━━━━━ ••

I pray my death is slow and agonizing.

I pray that it is drawn out and exaggerated long enough for me to see the faces, to hear the voices, of everyone I love one last time. Because it dawns on me once more as I stand underneath the doorway of Zara's untouched bedroom, that she was never given the chance.

She didn't get to dance with Michael for the first time, for the last time. She didn't get to feel his tear on her fingertip, the only one the king happily accepted at their wedding for the first time, for the last time. She didn't get to reflect on where it went wrong with Michael, or if it was ever even right. She didn't get to reflect on her growth, on the woman she once was and the one she became. She didn't get to feel the barrel of the gun on her forehead, to look up into the eyes of what would be her favorite assassin for the first time, for the last time. She never got to tell Vincenzo De Santis that she loved him for the first time, or for the last time. She didn't hear Rosalie's laugh. She didn't feel Vincenzo's touch. Or savor Carmen's indescribable hugs.

Zara's death was quick and painless. Her soul was taken in the whisper of the wind, and Liam only caught what was left. The only peace, the only comfort I can find in her leaving us—and the only thing that stops me from crying hysterically in her doorway—is this.

Zara's voice was the first Liam ever heard, and his was her last.

I could stand here for days and cry about how unfair her death was. I could drop to my knees at her headstone every day at the same time and lay rose after rose, and flower after flower, at her head. I could beg Vincenzo to tell me every story he has about her, relieving her memory one word at a time. But nothing will provide my heart the peace, or the comfort it needs until the woman associated with the Yakuza, the one who ordered her hit, is dead.

I pray my death is slow and agonizing because I intend to deserve it.

Her room is untouched. Forever frozen in a moment of time that will never see the next. The air is stale, but if you close your eyes, you can smell her. The faintest whiff of the last perfume she ever danced through. Her favorite. A single wrinkle in her duvet, one she swore to fix when she got back, when she crawled in bed that night. Her phone is on its charger. Liam put it there the first night, unable to look through it, or admit she would never need it again. Her closet door is open. The only pair of shoes missing are the ones that never made it back.

Her room felt like a time capsule that was opened too early, and never given the chance to become as special as it deserved to be.

I sit down on the edge of her bed, doing everything I can to keep it the way she left it—even if only for a minute longer. And I cry. I cry because I'm tired. I cry for Zara. But I cry for myself, because none of these people were ever supposed to be as special as they have become. They were supposed to be nothing. Acquaintances that would appear in my dream every blue moon. They weren't supposed to become my life. They weren't supposed to become everything.

One of them knocks on the bedroom door. Carmen stands underneath the doorway, her arms full of empty boxes. They're stacked so high that they obscure her face and vision. But her long, jet black hair and Federico's black sweatsuit are unmistakable. She drops the boxes in the middle of the room, tosses a strand of hair over her shoulder, and begins to work the oversized sleeves up her short arms. She quickly adjusts the excess material that gathers at her ankles. Her smile doesn't fade until she looks up and sees me.