She blinked at him, caught off guard.
He was already on his feet.
“You want to leave,” he went on, his voice rough, raw in a way that had nothing to do with anger alone.“But you don’t want to be replaced?Make up yourfuckingmind.”
The room fell quiet again—but this time, it carried weight by everyone at the table.
This wasn’t about France.It wasn’t even about her leaving.
Something older had surfaced.Something none of them had buried properly.
And just like that, I didn’t belong there.Not in this room.Not in this moment.I was standing on the edge of something that wasn’t mine—watching them circle a wound I had no right to see.
I saw it in the way Gianni’s hands trembled slightly at his sides.In the way his gaze locked onto her like he was trying to hold something together that had already started to break.
“You can’t keep doing this,” he said, quieter now, but no less intense.“Running from it.Running from everything.”
Her expression shifted.
“I’m not running,” she said.
“Yeah?”he shot back.“Then what do you call it?”
Silence.
He laughed, but there was no humor in the sound.
“Because from where I’m standing, it looks like you’re trying to outrun something that’s already inside you.”
Her jaw clenched.
“Don’t—”
“No,” he cut in.“You don’t get to shut this down.”
The air thickened, heavy and stifling.
“You didn’t even cry,” he said suddenly, the words dropping into the room like a weight.
Everything stopped.My attention sharpened.
“You didn’t shed a single tear when Alessio died,” Gianni went on, his voice cracking slightly.“Not one.Because you were too busy holding everything together.Making sure the rest of us didn’t fall apart.”
Tone didn’t move.But something in her eyes changed.
“And now?”he pressed.“Now you think you can just leave?Like we can afford to lose another member of this family?He was yourbest friend!”
Alessio’s name wasn’t spoken again, but his absence filled the room.
I watched it happen.The way each of them carried it differently.
Gianni—raw.Open.Bleeding.
Raze—contained.Buried.
Marcello—quiet.Still grieving.
Atlas—controlled, but not untouched.
