Nothing.
What did you expect? I ask myself bitterly. You told him you hated him. You walked out. You made your choice.
But it doesn't feel like a choice. It feels like survival instinct kicking in at the worst possible moment.
My phone buzzes. Vittoria's name flashes on the screen.
V: Lily's bunnies miss her. Sir Floppington the Fourth has been dramatically flopping around the hutch in protest. I think he's staging a hunger strike. (He's not. He ate three carrots this morning. But the DRAMA, Kristen.)
A laugh escapes me before I can stop it. The first real laugh in days.
I type back: Tell him Lily drew him a picture. A purple bunny with wings. She says he can fly now.
V: OMG. Send it immediately. I'm framing it.
I don't respond right away. I set the phone down and stare at the water-stained ceiling of my apartment. The crack that's been there since we moved in. The faint sound of the neighbors arguing through the thin walls.
This is my life. This is what I chose.
Nico
The timestamp reads 03:47 when I catch the discrepancy.
I've watched this footage six times now, frame by frame, the blue glow of my laptop the only light in my bedroom. The shipment from Jersey—forty-two crates logged at the warehouse, but only thirty-nine loaded onto the truck. Three crates vanished somewhere between dock and destination.
Three crates don't just walk away.
I rewind, watch again. The forklift operator moves the pallets. Normal. The truck backs in. Normal. Then there's a gap—seventeen seconds where the camera angle shifts just enough that the loading bay door sits in a blind spot.
Seventeen seconds. Someone knew exactly where to stand.
My door opens without a knock. Only one person in this house does that.
"You look like shit," Pietro says.
I don't look up from the screen. "Busy."
He crosses the room, and I smell coffee. Real coffee, not the whiskey that's become my water. He sets a mug on my nightstand like I'm going to drink it.
"Kristen called."
My fingers freeze on the keyboard. Just for a second. Then I force them to keep typing, pulling up another camera angle I've already memorized.
"Did she." My voice comes out flat. Good.
"She wants to pay back every penny." Pietro settles into the chair by my window. The one I've been avoiding because it faces the garden where Lily used to play with those damn rabbits. "Set up a payment plan. Fifteen hundred a month."
Of course she did.
"She's stubborn," I say. The word tastes like ash. Like the cigarettes I've been chain-smoking since she walked out seven days ago. Seven days, fourteen hours, and roughly thirty-two minutes. Not that I'm counting.
"I told her no."
"Good."
Pietro doesn't leave. I feel him watching me.
"How are you handling this?"
