"You look terrible," Dante says, without looking up from his phone.
"Good morning to you too."
"I'm serious. Did you sleep at all?"
"Drop it."
Luca looks up from his plate and takes one look at me. "Who is she?"
"There's no she."
"There's always a she when you look like that." He grins.
"Luca." Matteo's voice, flat and final, from the other end of the table.
"I'm just saying?—"
"I know what you're saying. Quit acting like a child."
Dante snorts quietly into his coffee. I kick him under the table. He doesn't react, which means he felt it and doesn't care.
Luca opens his mouth again. Isabella, without looking up from her own plate, says mildly, "Don't."
He closes it.
"Thank you," Matteo says.
"She's been doing that the whole morning," Luca tells me, jerking his chin toward Isabella. "The one-word shut-downs. Terrifying."
"You're welcome to eat in the kitchen," Isabella says.
Luca laughs, the genuine kind, surprised out of him and for a moment it almost feels like a normal morning. Like we're just men who like each other eating breakfast, and not men who are running out of time on a problem that doesn't have a clean solution.
Then Matteo puts down his phone.
His gaze moves to Isabella, slow and deliberate, and I know before he speaks that the morning is over.
"Why did you go to Enzo's room last night, Isabella?"
The entire table goes still.
Isabella's coffee cup stops halfway to her mouth.
I stop breathing entirely.
Shit.
Matteo's face is open and curious, nothing suspicious in it, nothing accusatory, just genuine question asked casually over breakfast, and somehow that makes it worse.
"His wound," Isabella says, and her voice comes out smooth, even and completely convincing. "From the fight at the cabin. I wanted to make sure it was healing properly."
Matteo nods, accepting this without question. "Is it?"
"Yes," I say, because I need to contribute something to this lie. "It's fine."
"Good." He goes back to his phone like the question is already forgotten, and across from me Isabella finally lifts her coffee to her lips and drinks and doesn't look at me.
"There are cameras in the hallway now," Matteo adds casually. "Security upgrade. Rafael suggested it after the O'Rourke situation. Everywhere except the bedrooms. Privacy concerns." He glances up. "Just so you're aware."
