Prologue
4 YEARS AGO...
The first thing Aria’s hazy mind registered was that she could barely move.
Her head was pounding, her left eye was completely swollen, and she was bleeding profusely from the wound in her abdomen if the warm liquid running over her hands was anything to go by.
She slowly turned her head to the side despite an excruciating pain zipping through her neck and making her vision go white for a few seconds.
After everything returned to focus, the sight that greeted her made her remember the reason behind her current state.
“Please don’t do this, David! Please, I’m begging you!” Aria moaned, her voice hoarse and broken, so much so that she wondered if someone else had spoken on her behalf.
She saw him standing above her crying friend with the gun pointed straight at her head, the satisfaction of holding someone else’s life in his hands swirling in those dead, cold eyes.
Aria could still remember the time when she had foolishly thought those were the most beautiful eyes she had ever seen, and now, after everything that had happened, she finally realized just how wrong she had been.
She felt helpless as she lay there broken on the cold kitchen floor, unable to do anything to help her friend, as the horrifying guilt kept crashing over her in waves.
She knew the risk they would be taking, and she had chosen to ignore it, endangering her friend’s life without so much as a second thought, too wrapped up in her own desires.
She knew that she shouldn’t have brought anyone into her mess and had chosen to ignore it, and now, because of Aria, Jamie was going to die.
There was a moment of complete silence, only broken by Aria’s harsh breaths and soft pleas before she heard the sound of a gunshot, and then another and another...
“No!” she started to scream at the top of her lungs as tears spilled out of her eyes before she saw Jamie falling to the ground, her friend’s pretty hazel eyes losing their light barely a few feet away from her.
