The nickname struck something buried deep.
Something I hadn’t touched in years.
Vin.
Not Vincenzo. Not boss.
Not Orsini.
Just... Vin.
Fourteen hours.
Maybe fifteen.
That was all the time she had known that version of me.
And yet—
She had held onto it.
Even after everything.
I studied her.
She wasn’t the same girl I remembered.
Of course she wasn’t.
She had grown.
Matured.
Into something sharp.
Dangerous in her own quiet way.
Her hair—dark, long, falling in loose waves around her shoulders—caught the light as she moved slightly.
Her cheekbones were more defined now.
Her eyes—
God.
Those eyes.
They had always been expressive.
Now they were storm-gray.
Deep. Heavy.
Carrying something I didn’t recognize.
Something that had been carved into her.
She was beautiful.
