“Marco—”
“I said nothing.”
The silence that follows cracks through the connection. Everyone processes it. Joy compromised, something wrong infiltrating the celebration.
I know before anyone confirms. Only one person could trigger Marco’s complete shutdown.
Sofia.
She found out about the birth. Of course she did. She keeps tabs on the family she chose to leave for Alexei. And she reached out. Not to me, the brother who trained her. To Marco, whose forgiveness carries the most weight.
And he’s dismissing it as nothing. Deleted without reading.
Alex’s mouth opens, preparing to push, because Alex always pushes, but Dante catches his eye with a sharp negative. Not now. Not during Luca’s moment.
But the damage is done. The crack spreads. The empty space where Sofia should be standing becomes visible, acute. She should be here, making inappropriate comments about Luca reproducing, analyzing Theodore’s features, bringing her particular chaos to the celebration.
Instead, she’s somewhere else, with Alexei, living the life she chose over blood, watching our family from an even greater distance than mine. And Marco won’t even acknowledge the message. Over a month of silence, and he holds the line.
The call winds down quickly after that, the warmth forced now, everyone processing the ghost in the room.
“When this is done,” Marco says, eyes locked on mine through the screen, “bring her to Chicago.”
Not ‘return to Chicago.’ Not ‘come home.’
Bring her.
Two words that acknowledge Marisol’s importance, register her as someone attached to me. From Marco, that’s practically approval. But it communicates something else too. He seeswhat’s happening, recognizes I’ve chosen her over protocol, and accepts even without endorsing it.
The screen goes dark.
Dawn breaks over the horizon like a slow explosion, painting Biscayne Bay in gold while we sit processing my family’s chaos.
The coffee’s cold. The laptop’s closed. The penthouse feels like a tomb after all the Rosetti noise.
“That’s what family looks like,” Marisol says quietly. Not the chaos agent, not the party girl. Just the woman recognizing something irretrievable.
“It’s not perfect.”
“I know.” She curls into my side, her body warm against me. “You all miss Sofia.”
The name lands soft between us. She says it simply, understanding without needing a briefing. Marco’s reaction. The fractured celebration. The sister who should have been there.
“He’ll come around,” she says.
“You don’t know Marco.”
“I know stubborn men who love harder than they know how to show.” She pauses, her hand finding mine, fingers interlacing like she’s claiming me too. “They disappoint while still loving underneath.”
I look at this woman carefully.
“They dismissed you,” I say.
“They don’t know me.” She shrugs, and I feel the movement through my shirt. “They have the tabloid version. The disaster profile. I’m used to it.”
“Marco ordered me to bring you to Chicago.”
“That terrifies me more than Cesar.” She tries for humor but doesn’t quite land it. “Meeting them. Being assessed in person instead of through a screen.”
