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“She made it clear a long time ago where she stands,” I said, more to myself than anyone else. “Nothing’s changed.”

The room was quiet for a beat.

Then Chris shifted slightly in his seat. “Not everything,” he said, almost absently.

Dante’s gaze flicked to him. “What do you mean?”

Chris hesitated, like he hadn’t meant to say it out loud. “Just… something else that came up,” he said with a shrug. “Not really our business.”

“Say it anyway,” Dante replied, a sharpness to his voice that hadn’t been there a moment ago.

Chris rubbed the back of his neck. “Her mum.”

My head snapped up before I could stop it.

“What about her?” Dante asked, his voice still even, but there was something sharper beneath it now.

Chris frowned slightly, like he was trying to piece together something he didn’t fully understand himself. “She hasn’t been seen around much lately,” he said. “And when she has been… people noticed.”

“Noticed what?” I asked, my voice coming out lower than I intended.

Chris glanced between us before answering. “Bruises,” he said simply. “Looked rough. Like she’d taken a beating or two.”

Something cold slid down my spine.

For a second, no one spoke.

The room seemed to still, the air thickening in a way that had nothing to do with the size of the space. Dante leaned forward slightly, his elbows resting on the table now, his gaze fixed somewhere distant.

“Say that again,” he said quietly.

Chris shifted uncomfortably. “I don’t know anything concrete,” he added quickly. “Just what people were saying. Could be nothing. Could be—”

“It’s not nothing,” Dante cut in. “Because I’ve had my own old lady lecturing me about bruisesshe’sseen with her own eyes. On Gabriella,” he said, turning to me and meeting my eyes as he finished speaking.

Silence fell again.

And this time, it stayed.

Because now it wasn’t just about what we’d heard.

It was about what we already knew.

What we’d seen.

The bruises.

The tension.

The way things had never quite added up where Gabriella was concerned.

My mind went straight back to last night.

To the way she’d looked at me.

To the way she’d touched the glass.

To the way she’d… stepped back. But as I replayed it, I could see how it pained her. I saw the dampness of her lashes. The way her shoulders hunched.