I finally look at him. My brother sits there in his pressed shirt, concern carved into the lines around his eyes, and I want to laugh. Or scream. Maybe both.
"I survived until now."
"Vittoria says you're not eating."
"Vittoria should mind her own business."
"She says you're living on whiskey."
I gesture to the half-empty bottle of Macallan on my desk. The good stuff. If I'm going to pickle my liver, might as well do it with quality. "I'm alive, aren't I? Until the whiskey kills me, you can assume I'm nutritioning myself very well."
"Nico—"
"I have work to do." I turn back to the laptop. "Three crates missing from the Jersey shipment. That's the third discrepancy this month. Either we have a leak or someone's testing us."
For a long moment, he doesn't move. Then he stands, and his hand lands on my shoulder. Heavy. Warm. The kind of touch I used to flinch away from because comfort felt like weakness.
He then leaves. The door clicks shut behind him, and I'm alone again with the blue light and the missing crates and the half-empty bottle that's going to need replacing soon.
She asks about you.
I close the laptop. Lean back in my chair. Stare at the ceiling.
Claudio briefs me every day. I don't ask—he just knows. She's at home. She took Lily to the park. She bought groceries. She hasn't left the apartment in two days.
She never leaves that shitty apartment.
I should stop the surveillance. It's pathetic. It's obsessive. It's exactly the kind of controlling behavior she accused me of.
But I can't stop. Because if I stop watching, I'll have nothing left of her at all.
What I've learned from Kristen Thomas is simple: love sucks. It rips you open and leaves you bleeding and doesn't even have the decency to kill you quickly.
The bedroom door stays closed. The house stays quiet. And I sit here in the dark, thinking about gray-blue eyes and a laugh I'll never hear again, and I realize something.
I don't care anymore.
If someone walked through that door right now with a gun, I wouldn't reach for mine. I'd welcome the bullet. At least then this hollow ache in my chest would finally stop.
My phone buzzes. I consider ignoring it. I've been considering ignoring everything lately.
But the screen shows Dante's name, and Dante doesn't call unless it matters.
"Yeah."
"The Russians." His voice cuts through the whiskey fog in my skull. "Meeting's in two hours. Bellini's back room."
Fuck.
I'd forgotten. The Bratva wants to negotiate for the docks, and I'd completely forgotten.
"When did you get back?" I ask, buying time while my brain struggles to catch up.
"Two days ago. Lorenzo's handling the Sicily debrief with Pietro now." A pause. "You sound like shit."
"Everyone keeps telling me that."
"Can you handle this?"
