“Sir, you can’t be back here,” someone said.

I saw the back of Gia’s head as she disappeared out another door. I followed, ignoring everyone, and pushed through the door that led into an alley. The stench of the city and the trash containers overwhelmed my senses, and I wondered how the two standing across the way smoking cigarettes could stand it.

Seeing me, they quickly dropped their cigarette butts and put them out before going inside the door I’d just exited.

“Gia!” I called out, looking in one direction, then the other, where I spotted her leaning against a wall. Arms folded across her belly, the sunshine bounced off the natural red tones in her dark hair as she waited there for me, head bowed.

“You shouldn’t be here,” she said, looking up as I approached.

To be this close to her, to see her, hear her… “I should be right here,” I said, reaching out to touch her, but pulling back, afraid she’d run off, disappear. “In fact, I should never have let you walk away. That was my biggest mistake when it came to you.”

She watched me, confusion in her eyes.

“I made a lot of them, but that was the biggest. Letting you believe Scava, that you were somehow some sort of monster—that was another one. Making you watch that night—” I shook my head. “You’re too clean for that. I should never have let you see—”

“Stop. I don’t want to hear.” She put her hands over her ears like a little kid.

“Gia—”

“You have to go,” she said, cutting me off.

“Gia?” Someone opened the door and called out.

I took Gia’s arms.

“You have customers,” the woman said, her cautious gaze on me.

“Just a minute,” Gia said, never looking away from me.

“You okay?” the woman asked.

Gia nodded. “I’ll be in in a minute.”

The woman went back inside.

“I’ve gone to see Effie,” I said. “And I’m selling the houses—”

“You need to go,” she said, cutting me off. She straightened and wiped her eyes, attempting to clear all emotion from her face. “You can’t be here. You just can’t.”

The door opened again, and this time, the woman returned with two men.

“Gia,” one of the men said, walking out. “Everything okay here?”

“Go, Dominic. I don’t want you here.”

The man came to stand a few feet from us. “You heard her. You need to leave, Sir.”

“Gia.” I reached out for her, but she turned her back and disappeared behind the man and back inside the building.

“Sir,” the man said.

I glared at him, then saw the woman watching me from the doorway. I turned and walked away. But I didn’t leave. Well, I walked out of the alley, but I didn’t leave the city.