"—everything," I finish lamely.
Silence on the other end. Then Amanda's voice comes back, softer now. "Vic. Are you okay?"
"I'm going to go nuts in there tonight," I say, forcing brightness into my tone. "I need this. I need to remember what it feels like to be a normal twenty-four-year-old who hasn't forgotten how to have fun."
"Oh my GOD." Amanda's squeal nearly shatters my eardrum. "Okay, okay, okay. I'm picking you up at ten. Wear something hot. Like,hothot. That black dress you wore to your brother's engagement party?—"
"The one Mamma said was too short?"
"That's the one. You looked incredible and you know it."
I do know it. That dress made me feel like someone else entirely. Someone who wasn't carrying the weight of dead men on her shoulders.
"Ten o'clock," I confirm. "Don't be late."
"Babe, I've been waiting two years for this. I'll be early."
She hangs up before I can respond, leaving me standing alone in the hallway with my phone pressed to my chest and a feeling blooming in my ribcage.
Hope. Or maybe recklessness. Hard to tell the difference these days.
I push off the wall and continue toward my room, my steps lighter than they've been in months.
One night. Just one night of being someone else.
What's the worst that could happen?
The black dress clings to me like a second skin as I make my way through the compound's main corridor. Amanda wasn't wrong. This thing barely covers my ass. But that's sort of the point tonight. Be someone other than the grieving sister who spends her nights staring at code until her eyes burn.
I almost make it to the front door.
Almost.
"Where the hell do you think you're going dressed likethat?"
Bruno's voice cuts through the quiet. I turn to find him in his wheelchair at the end of the corridor, blocking the path to the east wing. Even seated, he radiates menace. His dark eyes rake over me from heels to hemline, and his jaw tightens with what looks a lot like fury.
I pause. Study him for a moment.
The brother I grew up with. The golden boy, the one who laughed at Sunday dinners and snuck me gelato when Mamma wasn't looking. That Bruno died in a hospital bed two years ago. The man who woke up from that coma wears his face but carries a stranger's cruelty behind his eyes.
"I'm going out," I say simply.
"No." His fingers drum against the wheelchair's armrest. "You're not."
My spine stiffens. "Excuse me?"
"You heard me, Vittoria. It's after ten. That dress is indecent. You're staying here."
Indecent.I want to laugh. I want to scream. I want to ask him who he thinks he's talking to, because it certainly isn't his little sister who he used to let win at cards just to see her smile.
"Bruno—"
"What's going on?"
Pietro materializes from the shadows of his office doorway, whiskey glass in hand. He looks between us with the assessment that's become second nature since he took over as Don. A position he never wanted. A crown that should have been Bruno's.
Should have been.
