The same questions churn over and over. Someone killed my daughter. But she wasn’t the target. Elizabeth was. Why? Who would want to hurt her? Or was that punk just lying to save himself?
The car pulls up to the building, and I sit there for a moment, staring at the glass doors glinting in the snow. My hands are clean, but they don’t feel clean. They never will again.
Inside, the penthouse is too quiet. The faint scent of smoke lingers from the fireplace, mingling with the sterile sting of disinfectant that still clings to my skin. I expect Elizabeth to be asleep—she should be, after what she’s been through—but she’s standing by the fire, her arm wrapped in fresh gauze and she’s lost in thought.
When she turns toward me, it’s like she already knows the answer.
“Did you find the man who…” Her voice wobbles. “Who hurt her?”
“Yes.”
The word lands between us like a stone dropped in water.
She nods slowly, eyes flicking toward the floor. “And?”
I take a step closer, unbuttoning my coat but not removing it. “He’s dead.”
Her gaze snaps up. “You?—”
“He killed my daughter,” I cut in, voice sharp. “There was never going to be a trial.”
She flinches at that, but she doesn’t look away. “You killed him.”
“I gave the order.”
The distinction means nothing. We both know it. Silence stretches between us, filled only by the crackle of the fire. The light paints her face in shades of gold and shadow, softening the fear in her eyes, replacing it with grief.
“Did it make you feel better,” she asks finally, her voice barely above a whisper.
I don’t answer right away. I move closer instead, until I’m standing a few feet from her.
“No,” I admit. “Nothing will make me feel better again.”
She exhales shakily, tears catching the light. “Then why do it?” I want to reach out and brush the tears from her cheeks.
“Because I can. Because men like him—men who take what’s mine—need to learn there’s a price for it.” I say it without flourish, because there’s no room for anything else right now.
She swallows, eyes rimmed red. “And me?”
“What about you?” I answer, and the question hangs between us like a verdict.
Her chin trembles, but she doesn’t back away.
“I don’t belong here, Lorenzo. I never did. And now that Sienna is…gone, what happens to me?”
My name on her lips stops me cold.
NotMr.Conti.Notsir.Not the cautious distance she usually hides behind.
Lorenzo.
It lands inside me like a blow. Sharp, intimate, and far too human. It hits the part of me I keep buried with concrete and steel. The part that hasn’t heard his own name spoken with anything but fear, respect, or anger in years.
For a long moment, I just look at her.
At the way the firelight flickers across her hair, making her glow in a room built for ghosts. At how small she seems in this space that swallowed Sienna whole. At how fragile she looks and how strong she still stands despite everything she’s endured.
Something twists deep in my chest—dark, ugly, desperate. A thing I don’t dare name because naming it would make it real.
