His eyes flickered. Only slightly. But enough. He knew exactly what I meant. The room. The flowers. The cake. The shrine. Everything. Marco looked down into his glass.
"Four years." The answer hit harder than I expected. Four years. Four years of birthday cakes. Four years of untouched rooms. Four years of preserving somebody who wasn't coming back. “Four years of this madness, ever since his brother died.”
I swallowed. "Every year?"
Marco nodded. "Every year."
The rain outside seemed louder. "He does everything himself?”
"Every year."
My chest tightened. "He still visits the grave too, doesn't he?"
Silence. Marco took another drink. Then nodded. "He does. A lot."
I stared down at the marble countertop. Cold beneath my fingertips. My mind kept replaying the room. The photographs. The watch. The cake.
The fear in Santino's eyes when he thought I might touch something. Not because I would break it. Because I might change it. Move it. Disturb it. Erase some tiny piece of Angelo.
"He loved him that much?" The question slipped out quietly. Marco laughed. Not a happy sound.
"No." I blinked.
"No?" His jaw tightened.
"They were twins." Something in his voice made me go still. "They were born together. Raised together. They slept in the same room until they were sixteen because neither of them could stand sleeping alone."
My chest hurt.
"They did everything together." Marco stared into his whiskey. "Everything."
The kitchen seemed too quiet. Too small. Too intimate. Outside, lightning flashed over the city. For a second neither of us spoke. Then Marco looked at me. Really looked at me.
"You know what everybody gets wrong? They think Santino is angry because Angelo died." The words settled heavily between us. I waited. Marco's eyes dropped back to the whiskey. His voice became quieter. Rougher. "He's angry because he didn't."
Silence. My breath caught.
"He was supposed to be there." Marco laughed once. Bitter. "That's the funny thing about twins. Neither of them ever imagined there would be only one."
The words shattered something inside me. Because I understood. None of it was about moving on. Santino wasn't preserving Angelo because he couldn't let go. He was preserving him because he genuinely didn't know how to exist without him.
The realization hurt. More than it should have. Much more.
Marco drained the rest of his whiskey. Then stood. Conversation over. But before he left, he paused. Looked at me. And said quietly, "Nobody talks about Angelo anymore."
I frowned. "What do you mean?"
"They stopped years ago." His expression hardened. "Family. Friends. Business associates. Everybody."
My stomach twisted. Marco shrugged. "People move on."
Then he looked toward the hallway leading deeper into the house. Toward Santino. Toward the room. Toward the grief. "He never did."
Theideawasstupid.Catastrophically stupid. The kind of idea that usually ended with somebody yelling at me. Or shooting at me. Possibly both. Naturally, I committed to it.
By ten o'clock that night, I was standing barefoot in Santino's kitchen holding a chocolate cake and questioning every life choice that had led me here.
The house was asleep. Or pretending to be. I balanced the cake carefully while opening the refrigerator with my hip. Cold air spilled across my bare legs.
