The strange thing was that, standing here now, what I felt first was shock.
Not fear or not enough fear to matter the way it once had.
It was still there, somewhere deep, an old reflex that had not entirely died, but the place he used to bruise no longer lit up the same way. I didn’t feel small. I didn’t feel cornered. I didn’t feel like cowering.
I had sat in a room with Alessandro Benetti and held my own. I was currently dating a man who would one day be an underboss in one of the most dangerous criminal organizations in the country. I was not going to stand in my childhood home and fear the son of a local police chief just because he still wore his golden-boy smile.
I smiled back.
“Yes,” I said evenly. “I’m here for Sophie’s surgery. I’m not staying. And you’re here because…?”
My mother glanced between us too quickly. My father tensed. Sophie went very still on the sofa.
Adam laughed, easy and practiced, but I didn’t miss the warning underneath it. It was there in his eyes, sharp as a blade slid halfway free of its sheath. A promise of future retribution, dressed up in amusement.
Too bad for him that promise no longer worked on me.
“It’s a family reunion,” my mother said too brightly, stepping forward as if she could smooth it all back into something harmless by force of will.
“He’s not family,” I said.
Adam’s smile held, but only just.
“Well,” he said, setting the tray down with exaggerated care, “that’s a little rude. We were together for two years, Emily. I was Bran’s best friend.”
“Yes,” I said. “But Bran is dead. And you and I are done.”
The words felt good.
Necessary.
My mother made a soft, distressed sound. “Emily?—”
Adam sighed, the picture of long-suffering patience. “We all make decisions too quickly when we’re young. Your mom and dad broke up in college too, didn’t they? And look at them now. Stronger than ever.”
For one wild second, I almost asked my father how many times he had ever bruised my mother badly enough to leave finger marks.
The answer, of course, was none.
Instead I just looked at Adam and shook my head.
“I’m not here to reminisce,” I said. “I’m here for Sophie and her surgery.”
Then I turned toward my sister, deliberately turning my attention away from him as if he no longer deserved a primary role in my thoughts.
“It’s late,” I said, softening my voice. “Shouldn’t you be in bed before tomorrow’s big day?”
Sophie’s expression wavered. “Probably.”
I smiled at her. “What do you say to a sleepover? I’ll take the inflatable bed in your room. Just like old times.”
Her whole face changed at once, worry morphing in hope and excitement. “Really?”
“Really.”
She looked at Adam then, and I saw it clearly for what it was: caution. The careful awareness of someone who had learned the emotional temperature of a room too young.
Then she looked back at me and smiled, and that smile told me two things at once. She loved the idea, and she understood exactly what I was doing.
