Lucia’s expression warmed. “She sounds lovely.”
“She is,” I said before I could stop myself.
The room went quiet again, but this time gently. My sisters exchanged that subtle, intuitive look they’d always shared.
“You know,” Elena murmured, “it’d be nice having another woman around the house. Someone who can handle you.”
A smile tugged at my mouth. “She could. Handle me, I mean.”
Ava grinned. “Would she like us?”
“Yeah,” I said without hesitation. “She would.”
I could picture it—Frankie in this room, sitting with my sisters, laughing at some ridiculous story from our childhood. I could picture her here in the house. In my life.
Beside me.
The idea didn’t scare me as much as it probably should’ve.
Maybe that meant something.
Maybe it meant everything.
But I didn’t have time to unravel it. Not today. Not when the hospital was waiting. Not when my father’s life was hanging by a thread.
I rose from the chair, smoothing my hands over my shirt. The weight in my chest hadn’t gone away, but something else had settled over me—a steadiness born from sibling love and the echo of Frankie’s voice in my head.
“I need to go see him,” I said quietly.
My sisters nodded, each giving me a quick kiss on the cheek before slipping out of the office.
Leaving me alone with the photo, the papers…and the decision already made.
It was time to face my father.
25
FRANKIE
If someone had told me a few months ago that I’d fall into a routine with three mafia guys—who I now thought of, maybe delusionally, asmythree mafia guys—I would’ve scoffed and asked them for the title of the romance book they were reading.
But somehow, after Paris and the whirlwind of Jonathan’s father’s heart attack, life had settled into something almost normal.
Normal looked completely different than it had before that auction, though. Even different from before the Paris trip.
Now, every morning, Devin drove me to the library in one of the sleek black cars the guys rotated through like they were picking outfits.
He’d pull up to the curb and give me that soft, knowing smile of his, and I’d pretend not to see the second car idling down the block or the guy in sunglasses reading the same newspaper every day.
Security. Layers of it. Invisible unless you knew where to look.
I wasn’t an idiot, so of course, I did know. And honestly? I appreciated it.
They wanted to give me freedom. They also wanted me alive, and safe, and with them.
And I could tell the three of them—Jonathan in particular—were frustrated that “freedom” currently just meant “work at the library and come straight home.” They’d loved seeing me in Paris, letting me have my adventure.
But after the threat, after everything with Anthony Butera…I understood.
