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I look down at the photograph again.

Seraphina’s small face so trusting. And it’s then that I realize that my plan requires him to be the man I decided he was when I first met him.

And every day since, without asking me if it was okay, he has been quietly refusing to be that man.

I don’t know what to do with this. It’s like my entire worldview has just shifted.

I clutch the photograph against my chest with both hands, the same way Seraphina is clutching the puppy in the picture, like it’s my lifeline. “Excuse me,” I say dully before I turn around and walk away from him. The world has stopped spinning. Everything is frozen, except me.

I make it back to my rooms, closing the door and leaning against it. I look down at the photograph again.

And I finally, finally start to cry.

10

NICO

There’s a stack of contracts in front of me that need my signature and I have read the same paragraph four times without absorbing a single word of it.

My pen is uncapped and has been for a while.

I keep staring at the same line about shipping terms and seeing something else instead.

Ana screaming.

I went to her myself the morning after the morgue. I told Luca I would, and I’m a man of my word.

Other leaders would send a subordinate to do the job of telling people their loved ones have died but not me. Not for one of mine.

Ana opened the door wearing one of Dino’s old shirts, her belly round and high under it.

My eyes were trained on her eight months pregnant belly. Dino had been so excited to become a father. And now this child will never know him.

Ana had startled when she saw me, her brown eyes growing wide as she clutched her cup of coffee tighter in her hands.

I could see her throat visibly bob and her face went white.

She knew what it meant for me to be at her home so early in the morning, especially when her husband wasn’t home yet.

“Nico,” she said, her eyes darting around as if Dino would magically appear by my side. “Where’s Dino? He was supposed to call last night and he didn’t.”

Fuck me. I hated this part. But I couldn’t tell her the worst news she’d ever heard standing in her doorway. That wasn’t right. Dino wouldn’t appreciate that.

“Can I come in, Ana?” I asked, my own voice a little gravelly.

Ana’s face went even whiter and another woman who looked similar to Ana appeared.

This must be her sister.

The sister looked at me and gasped, her own face paling.

“Mr. Barone?” the sister asked anxiously while Ana started shaking her head, the coffee mug trembling in her hands.

“No,” Ana croaked. “No, no, no.”

Goddammit. I stepped inside and closed the door. The entire block shouldn’t also hear that Ana has lost her husband before she’d had time to process it.

“I’m sorry, Ana,” I said, my stomach twisting and my mouth filling with acid. “I’m so sorry, Ana. Dino’s gone. They found him in the Hudson yesterday.”