Definitely weird here.
Malec… The name feels too intimate. Too easy. I don’t want that. I don’t want to feel close to him, not more than I already have to.
“He can tell me himself if he’d prefer I call him something else,” I reply with a forced smile that comes too easily—just like all the other masks I’ve worn in my father’s house.
And just like that, the weight of it hits me.
How quickly I’ve learned to blend in.
How easily I’ve started pretending to be someone else.
I straighten my posture. “So. Who’s helping me find my sister and my medicine while he’s gone?”
Kayla and Chris exchange a look, something tight and unreadable flickering between them. Kayla’s eyes drop to my legs—and again, the look in her face isn’t judgment.
It’s something closer to heartbreak.
“Yes. It’s Pedro,” Chris finally says, nudging Kayla gently as she keeps staring. “You can talk to Pedro. He’ll handle it.”
Just to make sure I have it all straight, I force myself to focus, arranging the fragments of information in my head as I catch a glimpse of Chris fidgeting with the hem of her pants.
“Pedro is Bay’s husband, right?” I ask, my voice coming out softer than I expect. I feel a surprising comfort in asking, like I’ve earned the right to know. “So your father—” I point to Chris, then to Kayla, “—and yours, they’re brothers? The Spallo brothers, my father and uncle, have cursed for as long as I can remember.”
As soon as the words leave my mouth, my stomach knots.
Shit.
I realize too late that I said the last part out loud.
I clear my throat quickly, hoping to soften the sting. “Sorry. That’s just… what I heard. I don’t really know much.”
For a moment, I’m bracing for awkwardness, or worse, anger.
But Chris just shrugs, completely unfazed. “Yup. The crazy Spallo trio,” she says, as if I’d asked her whether the sky was blue.
Kayla chuckles beside her. “Wait until you meet our moms… It’s not any better.”
The beautiful woman who stepped out with the men earlier flashes in my mind. She was short, but she carried herself with so much confidence—strong, grounded, unflinching. Oneof Kayla’s eyes actually matches hers… that same sharp, shimmering turquoise gem eye.
I glance around Kayla’s floor again, taking in the wide sweep of Manhattan beyond the glass walls. The city lights glitter like scattered stars, echoing the swirl of my thoughts.
“You’re so lucky,” I murmur, my voice almost swallowed by the quiet. I look back at them. “I don’t think you even understand just how much.”
Chris opens her mouth, probably about to fire off something sharp, but Kayla stops her with a quick pinch to the forearm. Instead, Kayla just smiles at me—soft, patient—and reaches for my hands.
Her palms are warm, her fingers small and delicate, but her grip is steady, grounding. She doesn’t know me. She doesn’t know my story, my scars, my endless fractures… but every time I catch her gem-like eyes, it feels like she’s looking straight through me. Past the walls. Past the wreckage.
Why does it feel so familiar?
Why does it feel… safe?
Wait. Do I actually trust them?
Do I want to?
“Let’s go talk to Pedro,” Kayla says, her voice light but certain. “We’ll go together to ask for the medicine you mentioned. And I heard he already sent Matteo to get intel about your sister.”
Finally.
