Page 17 of Reign

Across the table, Vasilisa says something in Russian, soft and lilting. Santo answers her without missing a beat.

“Yes, Dea, I brought the snack cakes.” He slides one toward her ice cream.

“You promised me two, Santo Dante Amato,” she teases.

Santo reaches into the inner pocket of his jacket and produces another one like the lovesick lunatic he’s become.

I stare at them, then the snack cake. “Do you just carry those around now?”

Santo’s eyes cut to mine. “Do you really want to discuss that?”

“No,” I say sweetly. “I want to live to see twenty-two.”

Vasilisa laughs, and Santo’s expression changes before he can stop it.

Barely.

But I see the tiny loosening around his mouth. He looks at her like she’s the sun.

It’s disgusting.

It’s adorable.

I hate it.

Mostly because I want something like it so badly I could choke on the wanting.

Across the table, Adriana has gone still. At first, I think it is because of Angelo.

He has that effect on people. Especially her. One second, she’s smiling against his shoulder, and the next, she looks like something has reached across the table and wrapped a hand around her throat.

Her eyes move to me. Slowly.

Too slowly.

“What’s your middle name?”

My spoon pauses halfway to my mouth.

I raise a brow. Of all the things she could ask at my birthday dinner, that’s what she chooses?

I take a bite of ice cream and make her wait because I know exactly how much my brothers hate it.

Before I can answer, Riot does.

“It’s Hope.”

He says it so easy like the word doesn’t belong to my soul.

Like the name my mother gave me doesn’t sit in the hollow space between who she was and what little I have left of her.

My eyes flick to him, but his face gives away nothing.

Adriana shifts slightly, glancing toward Angelo. “Was your mother’s middle name…Francesca?”

The room changes.

Static so thick, I can feel it.