The recognition hit me like a fist to the chest.
I knew that performance. Knew it in my bones, in my blood, in every carefully constructed mask I'd worn since I was old enough to understand what was expected of me. She was doing what I did every day: holding herself together, projecting calm, giving the world exactly what it demanded while keeping the real self locked away somewhere safe.
Except she looked exhausted.
It was in the shadows under her eyes that makeup couldn't quite conceal. In the way her shoulders were held just slightly too high, carrying tension she probably didn't even notice anymore. In the almost imperceptible tremor at the corner of her mouth when she thought no one was watching.
Someone should be taking care of her. The thought surfaced before I could stop it. Someone should be making sure she eats. Making sure she sleeps. Taking some of that weight off her shoulders before it crushes her.
I didn't know where the thought came from. I barely knew this woman—a handful of photographs, a childhood memory of astammering girl, a name on an alliance document. But I couldn't shake the certainty that settled into my chest like something that had always been there, just waiting to be noticed.
She wasn't fragile. Looking at her, reading the way she carried herself, I could see the steel underneath the softness. Whatever had made her this way—this careful, this contained, this exhausted—she'd survived it. She was still surviving it.
But strength and invulnerability weren't the same thing. You could be strong and still need someone to lean on. You could be resilient and still deserve rest.
She needed someone to tell her she was safe.
The realization should have been absurd. I was a mafia don standing at my father's funeral, surrounded by enemies and uncertain alliances, with a hidden ledger burning a hole in my conscience and a dozen plots to untangle. I didn't have time for whatever this was—this unexpected, unwanted awareness of a woman I was supposed to marry for strategy, not sentiment.
But I couldn't look away from her. Couldn't stop cataloging the small details—the freckle beside her left eye, the way her lower lip was slightly fuller than the upper, the almost imperceptible rhythm of her breathing.
Across the room, Gemma Moretti lifted her honey-colored eyes and met mine.
For a single heartbeat, we stared at each other.
Then she looked away, and the moment shattered like glass.
I turned back to the endless parade of handshakes and murmured condolences, the work of being a don even while my father's body was barely cold. But my awareness of her stayed fixed like a compass needle finding north.
She moved to the refreshment table with her mother. I tracked her in my peripheral vision while shaking hands with one of my father's oldest soldiers. She accepted a cup of coffee she didn't drink. I cataloged the way she held the cup—both handswrapped around it, seeking warmth even in the stuffy reception hall. She spoke briefly with the Gambetti matriarch. I noted how she tilted her head when she listened, how she made the old woman smile despite the somber occasion.
"The family's in good hands," the soldier was saying. I'd missed half his sentence. "Your father would be proud."
"Thank you, Sal." I gripped his shoulder. "Your loyalty means everything."
I moved through the room, and she moved through the room, and we never looked at each other again, but I knew exactly where she was at every moment. It was ridiculous. Distracting. Exactly the kind of vulnerability I'd sworn I would never allow myself.
I couldn't seem to stop.
Then the temperature dropped.
It wasn't literal—the reception hall was still too warm, still thick with bodies and conversation and the cloying smell of funeral flowers. But something changed. A ripple of awareness that moved through the crowd like wind through tall grass.
I turned toward the main entrance.
Enzo Valenti.
He stood in the doorway for a moment, framed by the afternoon light, letting the room register his presence before he deigned to enter. Even from across the hall, I could see the careful arrangement of his features: solemn, respectful, touched with just the right amount of grief. A performance so polished it could have been lacquered.
He wore a charcoal suit, cut to emphasize his height, his leanness, the predatory elegance he'd cultivated over fifty-some years of being the most dangerous man in half the rooms he entered. Silver at the temples. Face that gave nothing away. Eyes the color of dirty ice.
His entourage fanned out behind him—two bodyguards who pretended to be assistants, his underboss Gino hovering at his shoulder like a faithful dog. They moved into the room with the practiced coordination of men who had done this a hundred times before.
I watched Enzo work the crowd.
He was good. Better than good—masterful. He clasped hands with the Gambettis, exchanging quiet words that made the old man nod gravely. He embraced Aunt Teresa, who accepted it with the stiff politeness of someone who didn't trust him but couldn't afford to show it. He made his way toward the Rossinis, the DeLucas, pausing to acknowledge each important face with exactly the right degree of attention.
Every movement calculated. Every word measured. A machine wearing human skin, going through the motions of sympathy he'd never felt.
