“Yes, well,” she huffs. Then she shifts, pushing up onto her knees, the movement fluid and unhurried, like the conversation was always going to end here. Her hand slides to my jaw, tilting my face towards her.
“It’s boring,” she murmurs, right before her mouth finds me.
CHAPTER 28
ISABELLA
Natalie Portman jumps backonto the couch the second the door clicks shut, reclaiming his spot with quiet authority. I stand at the door for a moment longer than necessary, staring at the space Cecilia occupied like it might still hold some version of her.
The house feels different.
The wind still moves through the aspens outside in the same steady rhythm, leaves brushing against each other in a soft, constant whisper. And everything is exactly as it was.
But something has shifted.
I’ve spent my whole life around elite skaters, and somehow Cecilia Montenegro is still the most impressive person in the room.
Not because she commands attention.
Because she doesn’t perform competence, doesn’t package it into something palatable or easy to endorse. She just… does the work. Sees things other people miss and refuses to let them go unnoticed, even when it would be easier—smarter—to stay quiet and let the system move the way it always has.
She doesn’t soften the edges of it, either. Doesn’t pretend it’s fair or meritocratic when it’s clear that it isn’t.
Yet Cecilia still shows up every day and makes it work anyway.
That should have made her bitter. It would make me bitter.
Instead, it made her exacting.
My phone buzzes against the kitchen counter, the vibration sharp against the stillness.
I don’t need to look.
Mom.
I watch it for a second longer than necessary, like the name might change into something more appealing if I give it enough time.
“Hi, Mom.”
“We’re having dinner,” she says, her voice already settled into that tone that assumes compliance. “You should come.”
I lean back against the cold marble, crossing one ankle over the other.
“Is it optional?”
“It’s not.”
A small breath leaves me, something between a laugh and a sigh.
“I’ll be there in twenty.”
The house I grew up in sits at the top of a hill, spread wide across a sprawling estate in a way that makes no attempt at subtleties. It doesn’t suggest wealth—it screams it in your face, loudly and without apology. As a kid, it took me forty-five minutes to walk downhill to the rink, my skates slung over my shoulder, the air thin and sharp in the mornings. I did it every day. Down before sunrise, back up when the day was already well underway, my body humming with that familiar bone-deep exhaustion and clarity of mind that only ever existed on the ice for me.
The door closes softly behind me now, the sound absorbed immediately by the space. Everything is exactly as it’s always been: the same careful lighting, the same restrained color palette, and every single object in its assigned spot, previously approved by my mother. Nothing here is accidental.
Nothing in the Pierce household is ever accidental.
My mother is already seated at the table, her posture exact without looking rigid and a glass of wine resting lightly in her hand. My father stands near the window, finishing a call, his voice low and even. A tone that carries authority without the need to be overbearing.
