I find the perfect pretty ceramic bowl in a box in the back. It’s sage green, wide and low. I fill it with fresh soil from the small stock I keep for the herb wall in the kitchen then coax what I can salvage of the plant into its new home.
Now where to put it?
The best light is near the front door by the hostess stand. Without a second thought, I move to the front of the restaurant, remove the giant arrangement of flowers that Gavin sent me and replace it with the simple little basil plant. The light from the front windows will hit it all morning and give it what it needs to grow.
I step back and look at it. The iridescent shimmer of the leaves catches the gold of the afternoon light.
I run my finger along one opalescent leaf gently, the shimmer shifting as I touch it.
Then I go back to work.
15
VIN
The bottle is empty. So are the two next to it.
Aurelio’s crystal decanter is empty too, which I don’t remember finishing, and there’s a glass somewhere on the floor that I dropped around dawn and didn’t bother to retrieve.
My current status: laid out on the floor of my living room on the Demonio estate. It’s a private island in the middle of the bay where my family has lived for decades, hidden away from everyone and everything, which is fucking perfect as far as I’m concerned.
Now that Aurelio is gone, I’ve taken up residence here again. And for the past few days, I’ve been holed up trying to process the shit show that is my fucking life.
Nobody is supposed to come here unless I say so. The front dooropens anyway. It could only be my brothers. No one else is even allowed on this island without my express consent.
I don’t move as they come down the hall, just lay there staring up at the ceiling. I can’t tell if the fan is on or if I’m so fucking wasted that I’m imagining it spinning in circles.
I feel them stop in the doorway and stare at me. I don’t look up.
“Jesus Christ.” Matti groans. “Thisis where you’ve been? What you’ve been doing? The fuck?”
Tommy picks up the glass off the floor and sets it heavily on the coffee table.
I roll my eyes. “Go home, Matti. You too, Tommy.”
“Vin—”
“I said go home.”
Silence, then the sound of Matti crossing the room, throwing open the heavy curtains. Winter light floods in, fucking bright and brutal, and I squint.
“The fuck are you doing?”
“When was the last fucking time you touched grass, bro?” He turns and looks at me fully. When the double vision I’m seeing converges, I can see how stressed out he is. “When did you last eat?”
“Not hungry.”
“That’s not what I asked.”
Tommy has settled into the chair by the window. He’s not looking at me. He’s looking at the empty bottles lined up on the desk like headstones. I can practically see the fucker calculating how much I’ve had to drink per day since I’ve been here.
“Ronan called me,” Matti says.
“Good for Ronan.”
“He called Tommy, too. And Declan called me separately, which means they’re coordinating, which means they’re worried, which means we are about to have a problem.” He pulls up a chair next to where I’m lying on the floor, sets his forearms on his knees, looking down at me. “What the hell is going on with you?”
What’s going on with me? I’ve been wasted for… I don’t know how long. Days, I think. I have no idea what day it is. No idea what time it is. Can’t remember the last time I showered. Or ate. I’ve put my fist through more walls than I can count—
