The Scapegoat Fiancée: I Am No Substitute

Alessia POV

The steady drone of the private jet engine was the only sound in the world.

I stared out the window at the Atlantic Ocean. It looked like a sheet of hammered lead. Dark. Heavy. Endless.

A mirror of the last seven years of my life.

I closed my eyes, desperate for rest, but the moment I drifted off, I was back in Danbury. I could smell the acrid sting of industrial bleach. I could hear the soulless clang of metal doors. I could feel the phantom ache in my hip where they had drilled into my bone to save a sister who wanted me dead.

I jerked awake, a gasp tearing from my throat.

My hand flew to my chest. My heart was hammering against my ribs like a trapped bird.

Blink. Breathe.

I wasn't in a cell. I was in a leather seat that cost more than my prison commissary budget for a decade.

I looked down at my hands, knotted in my lap. They were trembling.

I forced myself to breathe. In through the nose. Out through the mouth. The way the prison psychologist had taught me before the budget cuts took her away.

Below me, the water was changing color. The leaden gray was giving way to a brilliant, impossible turquoise.

Dominica.

The Nature Island. No extradition treaty that mattered. No sprawling Salinas estate. No Dante.

Thinking his name brought a fresh wave of nausea, acidic and hot.

I pictured him in the park. The candles flickering in the twilight. The roses. The look on his face when Chiara screamed. The way his instinct was to catch her, to soothe her, to protect the fragile glass doll while I stood there made of steel and scars.

He would be looking for me by now.

He would be tearing New York apart. He would be threatening Sal. He would be screaming at my parents.

Let him scream.

The pilot's voice crackled over the intercom, shattering the silence. We were beginning our descent.

I pressed my forehead against the cool glass.

I saw the lush green mountains rising out of the sea. They looked wild, ancient, and untamed.

I reached into my bag and pulled out the only thing I had taken from the attic. A small, crushed tube of oil paint. Cerulean Blue.

I rolled the cool metal between my fingers.

The girl who went to prison seven years ago was a Salinas. She was a daughter. A sister. A fiancée.

She died in that cell.

The woman landing on this island was nobody. She had no name. No history. No blood debt.

The wheels touched the tarmac with a screech. The jolt vibrated through my spine.

It felt like a gavel coming down.

Case closed.

I unbuckled my seatbelt. I didn't look back at the empty seat next to me where a life with Dante could have been.

I walked to the door. The stewardess opened it, and the heat hit me instantly.

It was thick and humid, smelling of salt and wet earth and flowers I couldn't name.

It didn't smell like bleach. It didn't smell like expensive cologne and lies.

It smelled like freedom.

I walked down the stairs. My legs were shaking, but I didn't stop.

I was twenty-five years old. And for the first time in my life, I was breathing air that hadn't been filtered through my father's permission.