“The funeral is in three days.”
Emilia bangs the spoon cheerfully against my arm.
“He needs to be there,” Siena continues. “Not just for the optics. For himself. For the family. For Matti and Tommy and everyone who has been waiting for him to step up and be the boss he’s been waiting to become.”
I nod. She doesn’t have to say what happens if he doesn’t go, how that looks to friends and enemies alike, what that means for the Demonio Brotherhood, and ultimately for her and Emilia if Matti is targeted.
I press my lips together. “That’s terrible. Truly.” I hand Emilia back to her mother. “Call his fiancée.”
Siena blinks. “What?”
“Ashlyn.” I say the name carefully. “Call Ashlyn. She’s the onehe’s building his life with. She’s the one he should be leaning on. She’s the one who—that’s what a partner is for, Siena. Call his fiancée.”
“Ashlyn doesn’t know him.” Her voice is quiet. “She doesn’t know our family. And he’s not in love with—”
I shake my head. “Don’t finish that sentence. We haven’t even been around each other in over a year.” I hope she can’t see the events of New Year’s Eve on my face, the memory of his cock inside me, the way he grabbled me, pinned me, fucked me, not to mention the other night in my bed— “There’s no way that me showing up makes any sense.”
Siena leans toward me, Emilia in her arms. “Sophie. I am not here to manipulate you or guilt you or make this worse than it already is. I am telling you that I have never seen him like this. Matti’s never seen him like this, not once in all the years he’s known him.”
“Maybe Matti can do something—”
“Matti hit him. Tommy’s not far behind.”
“Then Tommy—”
“Tommy says there’s nothing left to say.”
I push papers around on my desk and sigh. There’s no way I can do this. “Siena—”
“He hasn’t been with anyone. Matti told me. Since you two—since things ended, he hasn’t been with anyone. And if you knew Vin before, you’d know that that is…” She trails off. I did know Vin before us. I watched as his gaze landed on every beautifulwoman in the room. And never on me until I was the only option.
“He’s never been in love before, Sophie. Not once. Not with anyone. Nobody knows what to do with him right now because nobody has ever seen him like this and they don’t know how to reach him.”
“He doesn’t love me.” The words are automatic, practiced. I say them to myself every day as a reminder.
“I’m not saying it’s going to fix everything,” she says carefully. “I’m not saying it’s going to fixanything. I’m just saying that you are the only person who has any chance of getting through to him right now. And if he doesn’t show at that funeral—” She stops. “There are a lot of people whose lives depend on him getting his act together. Matti. Tommy. Everyone who works for them. Their families. My daughter.”
Emilia, on cue, reaches toward me again.
I look at the ceiling.
I know what Siena is doing. I know exactly what she’s doing, and it’s working anyway. The thought of Emilia losing a father, of Siena losing a husband, of their safety being affected in any way—it’s too much to bear. If there’s anything I can do to stop that, I have to try.
I think about what she said about Vin a long time ago: just because you understand why someone is broken doesn’t mean you have to be the one to fix them.
I don’t know if I can fix him or even if he wants to be fixed. But if there’s anything I can do for my cousin and my beautiful littleniece, I will.
I pick up some papers. Put them down. Pick them up again.
“He’s going to make me feel like garbage,” I say. “You know that.”
“Probably.”
“He’s going to say something awful.”
“Almost definitely.”
“And he has a fiancée who should be—”
