"Nella." She looks up when I walk in. "Something's wrong."
"What happened?"
"My cards." She waves her phone at me like it personally offended her. "All of them. Declined."
My stomach drops.
"I was trying to pay for that skincare set I ordered. The one with the vitamin C serum? You know, the one I've been saving for?" She's talking fast now, the way she does when she's working herself up. "First card, declined. Okay, fine, maybe I forgot to transfer money. But then the backup card? Declined. And the emergency one Papa gave me for?—"
"Gianna." I hold up my hand. "Slow down."
"They're all frozen or something. The bank app won't even load properly. It just keeps giving me error messages."
I pull out a chair. Sit down across from her. My mind is already racing through possibilities, and none of them are good.
"It's probably just a system issue," I hear myself say. "Banks have problems all the time. Remember last month when the ATM ate Claudio's card?"
"This is different." Gianna shakes her head. "I called the customer service line. They put me on hold for twenty minutes and then hung up on me."
"That's just bad customer service."
"Three times, Nella. They hung up three times."
I reach across the table. Squeeze her hand. "I'm sure it's nothing. Maybe there's some kind of fraud alert. You know how paranoid banks get about online purchases."
She doesn't look convinced. Neither am I.
"Just... don't worry about it, okay? I'll figure it out."
"But my serum?—"
"I'll handle it." I stand up. Force a smile that feels like cracking glass. "Stay here. I need to find Claudio."
"He's in the garage. Been out there all morning."
I nod. Head for the back door.
"Nella?"
I stop. Turn.
Gianna's biting her lip. Looking younger than nineteen. Looking like the little girl who used to crawl into my bed during thunderstorms.
"Is everything okay? Like, really okay?"
No. Nothing has been okay for years.
"Everything's fine," I lie. "I'll be right back."
The walk to the garage feels longer than usual. Each step heavier. The bad feeling that started in my chest is spreading now, wrapping around my ribs like a vice.
Cards don't just get declined. Not all of them. Not at once.
Unless someone froze the accounts.
Unless there's no money left to decline.
Unless—
