Page 75 of The Cost of Silence

“It’s been days,” I argue, pacing the living room in leggings and one of Nico’s hoodies. Despite the stunning wardrobe he arranged for me, I feel most comfortable in his clothes. Which is telling its own story, and one I’m not touching with a barge pole.

“A whole week of doing what I’m told. I’m eating, resting, doing my work from here. I’m not even hurting anymore.” A point I prove by twisting and turning like I’m about to pull off some impressive jive move. I even manage to hide the slight wince, though his raised brow and crossed arms suggest not well enough.

“Please? I’m safe with you. And I want to go outside.”

Rossi sighs like a man who has seen too much. “Miss Romano—”

“Don’t call me that.”

“Miss Romano…”

“Too formal.” Not listening. I plug my ears and sing Jingle Bells.

A louder huff now. “Isabella.”

He tries again, his voice dipped in patience and threat. “If I take you out and Mr. Mancini finds out…”

“He won’t kill you,” I say cheerfully.

Rossi gives me a flat stare.

“Okay, he might, but only a little. A minor murder. He’ll probably only maim you a little.” He doesn’t blink. I try again. “I want Christmas decorations.”

That gets him.

His brows furrow. “Decorations?”

“Yes,” I say, warming to it. “Lights. Ornaments. A tree, maybe. Something warm. Something that makes the penthouse feel like… not a bunker. I need a little life in this place.”

Rossi shifts. I can see the exact moment the stoic façade cracks. This man is a fortress, but even fortresses have weak spots, and his appears to be Christmas.

Also, the fact that he’s watched me survive an arson attack, a physical attack, and a total life implosion. A trip to a store probably doesn’t make the top ten dangers.

He sighs again, a defeated sigh this time. “Fine. One store. One hour. No detours.”

I beam. “You’re my hero.”

“I’m a fool,” he mutters.

But he gets his coat. And ten minutes later we’re in the elevator.

The moment we step into the holiday shop, I feel something click back into place inside me.

Warm lights. Soft carols. Rows of ornaments, glittering garlands, little ceramic villages. It smells like cinnamon and pine and nostalgia, like every Christmas memory I’ve ever loved. This is my happy place, and it settles something inside me. I know from the report Nico got from the fire chief that most of my belongings are lost, destroyed by smoke or fire and that guts me, but I’m alive and I can rebuild my trinkets and make new memories, and it starts now.

Rossi follows me like a large, grim shadow, looking so out of place it makes me giggle.

A child laughs somewhere near the display of plush reindeer, and I smile in response. I can’t wait to have kids so I can do all the Christmas traditions my parents did with me. Leaving cookies and milk for Santa, readingThe Night Before Christmason Christmas Eve, and drinking hot chocolate in matching pajamas. I hope that includes a man who loves it as much as I do. I inhale deeply.

I grab a basket, and my ribs twinge, but it’s a good twinge, alive, present.

Rossi grabs it off me and thrusts a cart at me instead. “You’re going to fill it, so let’s not pretend,” he predicts.

“I might,” I say, unable to stop smiling.

The first thing I pick up is a snow globe, simple and sweet. A tiny town square, dusted with glitter-snow. When I shake it, it looks like magic. “I like this one,” I murmur.

“Then take it.”