The kind that comes with memory of a gun barrel.
"You," she says.
Her voice is flat. Hollow. But there's something underneath it now. Something that wasn't there thirty seconds ago.
Anger.
Anger is better than nothing.
"Me," Nico agrees.
They've met before.
Two years ago.
Back when Sophia first came to the Sartori compound.
Back when everything was chaos and blood and nobody knew who to trust.
Nico pointed a gun at Sophia.
Marina wasn't there. But she knows.
The Torrinos had done things to our family. Terrible things. Sophia carried that name like a target on her back, and Nico—Nico was always the one who saw threats before anyone else. The one who questioned everything. The one who pulled triggers first and asked questions never.
He didn't trust Sophia.
He didn't trust anyone connected to Francesco Torrino.
And Marina was Sophia's best friend.
Which made Marina a potential threat by association.
"You pointed a gun at my best friend," Marina says.
Her voice is stronger now.
Still shaky.
But present.
There she is.
"I did," Nico says. No apology. No excuse. Just acknowledgment.
"You would have shot her."
"If she'd been a threat, yes."
Marina's jaw tightens.
I watch her hands curl into fists in her lap.
The trembling has stopped.
"She wasn't a threat," Marina says. "She was scared. She was running from her uncle. She needed help."
"I know that now."
