All true.
None of it explains why my blood pressure spikes every time she walks into a room. Why I memorized the exact shade of grey-blue in her eyes. Why the thought of Jack Walker's hands on her arm makes me want to find him and break every bone in his body, slowly, one by one.
"I don't know," I say.
The admission costs me something. I can feel it—a crack in the wall I've spent thirty years building. Small, but there.
Vittoria's eyebrows rise. "You don't know?"
"That's what I said."
"Nico Sartori, the man who knows everything, who sees every pattern, who questions every alliance—" She stops. Stares at me. "You genuinely don't know why you care?"
I don't answer.
I can't answer. Because the truth is uglier than ignorance. The truth is that I've spent my entire adult life avoiding exactly this—whatever this is. The wanting. The noticing. The way my chest tightens when she smiles at her daughter.
Wanting a woman more than just having fun with her, is a liability. I've watched it destroy men smarter and stronger than me. I've seen what happens when someone in this life lets themselves feel too much.
And yet.
And yet.
"I need to check on something," I say. The words sound hollow even to my own ears. "Keep an eye on things down here."
Vittoria opens her mouth to argue.
I'm already walking away.
But even as I close the study door behind me, I know I'm lying to myself.
Because the only problem I'm thinking about is in the room next to mine.
Kristen
The bedroom door clicks shut behind me, and my brain explodes.
Mom told him where we were.
I press my back against the cool wood, watching Lily bounce on the massive four-poster bed like it's a trampoline. The mattress alone is probably worth more than six months of my rent. Egyptian cotton sheets. Actual throw pillows that serve no purpose except looking pretty.
And my mother—my own mother—gave Jack our location.
She knew. She watched me count pennies for groceries. She brought us casseroles because Lily didn't have enough to eat. She held my daughter while I cried about money, about being scared, about wondering if I'd ever dig myself out of this hole.
And she picked up the phone and told Jack exactly where to find us.
My chest squeezes so tight I can't breathe.
"Mommy, are we gonna live in the castle now?"
Lily's voice cuts through the static in my head. She's standing on the bed, Sir Floppington clutched to her chest, gray-blue eyes wide with that specific brand of hope only four-year-olds can manufacture.
"No, baby." I push off the door, forcing my legs to carry me toward her. "We're just... visiting."
"But it's so pretty." She flops backward onto the pillows, spreading her arms like a snow angel.
I sit on the edge of the bed, reaching over to brush hair from Lily's forehead. My hand trembles. I hope she doesn't notice.
