Page 18 of Reign

The air tightens. Angelo frowns. Santo’s attention cuts away from Vasilisa for the first time in minutes.

“Yeah,” Santo says. “Why?”

Something cold slides down my spine. Adriana breathes out, almost like she can’t stop herself.

“Her whole story—it’s just so sad. I had no idea.”

My spoon lowers. The soft clink against the plate sounds too loud.

Sad.

The word lands wrong.

The word crawls beneath my skin because she says it like she knows something. Like she’s walked into a room in my mind I locked from the inside and found my mother sitting there.

I look at her. The guilt on her face.

No.

My heart drops so hard I feel it in my stomach. “Why would you say that?”

My voice slices through the dining room, all the light gone from it.

Adriana blinks. “I-I…”

She knows.

She knows something she shouldn’t.

“I found a book in Angelo’s office,” she admits, swallowing hard. “I thought it was mine at first. But when I started reading it, I thought maybe…maybe it belonged to one of the women you rescued. It didn’t have a name, but—”

The world narrows. The table disappears.

The dessert. The candles. The family pretending this day doesn’t taste like grief.

Gone.

Only one thing remains.

A journal.

Angelo’s office and my mother’s words in another woman’s hands.

“Where is it?” I ask.

Sharp. Too sharp.

I feel Riot turn slightly beside me, his attention locking on me now instead of the room.

Adriana’s eyes widen. “In my room. But—”

“She didn’t have a sad story,” Santo cuts in, voice low and firm. “Our parents met at a party. Fell in love. This life is hard, yeah, but it wasn’t tragic until the end.”

I almost laugh. It rises in me like broken glass.

Naive.

Of course Santo, who keeps everything locked away behind gates and guards and libraries, thinks he gets to decide what our mother’s story was. Of course he thinks the truth begins where his memory begins and ends where his grief can tolerate it.