But the words died in my throat.
Because she was right. Gemma was about to walk into a marriage she hadn't chosen, in a city she didn't know, surrounded by people who saw her as a political instrument rather than a person. I'd watched her at the funeral—the careful isolation, the performed composure, the way she'd apologized for being bumped by a stranger.
If anyone understood what it felt like to be overlooked and undervalued in a family of powerful men, it was my sister.
"I should be angry," I said finally.
"But you're not."
"No." I picked up the cortado. Took a sip. Let the bitter warmth settle on my tongue. "I'm not."
Donatella's expression shifted—the defiance softening into something more searching.
"You want to know about her," she said. Not a question.
"Yes."
The admission cost me something. I didn't examine what.
"Then ask."
I set down the cortado. Looked at my sister—this fierce, loving woman who had grown up in the shadow of violence and still managed to be kind. Who had watched our mother die and our father crumble and somehow emerged with her heart intact.
"What is she like?"
The question felt like a confession. Like I was admitting something I wasn't ready to name.
Donatella's face did something complicated. Surprise, maybe. Or recognition of something she'd suspected but hadn't confirmed until now.
"You really want to know," she said quietly. "Not just because of the alliance. Not just because she'll be useful or convenient or good for the family's image. You actually want to know who she is."
I didn't answer. I didn't have to.
Donatella leaned forward, her lavender latte forgotten on the table between us.
"We walked through Lincoln Park," she began. "Talked for hours. About everything and nothing—art history and pizza preferences and which Renaissance painters were overrated." A small smile crossed her face. "She studied art history at Columbia, did you know that? She's smart, Dante. Really smart. The kind of smart that doesn't need to prove itself because it's confident in what it knows."
I hadn't known. I'd seen her photographs, read the basic dossier on the Moretti family, but nothing about art history or Columbia or the workings of her mind.
"She's lovely," Dona said quietly. "Not just beautiful—though she is, obviously, you've got eyes—but genuinely lovely. Kind. Thoughtful." She stirred her latte absently, the spoon making slow circles in the lavender foam. "We walked through Lincoln Park and she stopped to give money to a homeless man. Not just a dollar or some spare change—she gave him forty bucks and told him to get something hot. Like it was the most natural thing in the world."
I thought about the woman I'd seen at the funeral. The perfect composure. The careful distance she maintained from everyone, including her own parents.
And beneath that armor—someone who stopped for strangers in doorways.
"She didn't do it for show," Donatella continued. "Didn't look around to see if anyone was watching. Just saw someone who needed help and helped. That's who she is underneath all those walls."
She paused. Set down her spoon.
"And she's sad, Dante. I don't know what happened to her, but something did. Something bad." Her dark eyes met mine, and I saw the fierce protectiveness that had always defined my sister—the same protectiveness she'd turned on anyone who threatened her brothers, now extended to a woman she'd known for one afternoon. "She's got walls up that make yours look like a picket fence. And she's so used to holding everything together that she doesn't even seem to realize she's exhausted."
I'd seen it. At the funeral, in the brief moment our eyes had met—the weariness beneath her composure. The bone-deep tiredness of someone who had been performing survival for so long they'd forgotten what rest felt like.
What happened to you?
Donatella reached across the table and gripped my wrist. Her hand was small but her grip was strong, demanding my attention.
"She asked about you," she said. "What you're like. What she should expect."
