As if summoned by the memory, I heard the door creak open behind me.
“Jonny?”
My youngest sister, Ava, poked her head inside. She was twenty now, but she still had the wide dark eyes that made men underestimate her. Behind her, Elena and Lucia followed, the middle and eldest sisters—but still younger than me. All of them tall, beautiful, and carrying a kind of effortless brightness that had never come naturally to me.
“What are you doing in here?” Elena asked softly, stepping inside. “Shouldn’t you be with Daddy?”
I swallowed. “I will be. I just…needed a minute.”
Lucia folded her arms, reading me too well. “You’re scared.”
I didn’t deny it.
The three of them moved into the room, surrounding me the way only siblings could. They took their places around me without fanfare, without pity. Just presence.
“Everything is going to change,” I murmured, staring down at my father’s handwriting. “If he doesn’t wake up…everything becomes my responsibility. All of it.”
“You always made it sound like you didn’t want it.” Ava sat on the edge of the desk. “The…you know.”
I huffed a humorless laugh. “The family business.”
“The fucking mafia,” Ava said, surprising me.
They all went still. Stunned, I looked to each of my sisters, begging for them to be joking. For them not to know what I thought they knew.
Then Lucia, the wisest of us, lifted a brow. “You know we’re not stupid, Jonathan. We don’t know everything, but…we know enough.”
That hit me harder than I expected.
“You could run it differently,” Ava continued quietly. “If you wanted to.”
“It’s not that simple.”
“Maybe it is,” Elena said with a shrug.
I didn’t know what to say to that.
For a moment, none of us spoke. Then Ava’s face brightened with a sudden shift in topic—my sisters’ favorite method of comforting me.
“So,” she said slowly, voice lilting with mischief, “are you going to tell us about the girl now?”
My head snapped up. “What?”
Elena laughed. “Oh, come on. We saw you texting her nonstop when you got back. And Devin basically admitted she’s staying with you all.”
“And Alex looked like someone would die if we asked him about her,” Ava added.
I groaned. “You three are a nightmare.”
They staged a collective sigh, the kind that meant they weren’t relenting.
So I gave in. A little.
“Her name’s Frankie,” I said, trying not to sound too affected. “She’s…sweet. And sharp. And brave in ways she doesn’t realize yet.”
All three of them leaned in like cats hearing a can open.
“She’s been through a lot,” I added softly. “And she still looks out for everyone else first.”
