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"We'll see," she says.

That means two.

Aria touches my face as I pass. I cover her hand with mine for a second, then we move through the doors into the foyer.

Garlic and roasting meat drift from Giulia's kitchen. Light spills across the marble. For one second, the house looks untouched by all the things that happened outside it.

Bruno stands at the bottom of the staircase.

Relief crosses his face, raw and unguarded for a heartbeat, before he smooths it away.

He was on the phone for all of it. The safe houses. The routes. The night I hung up on him and drove to Basile's gates alone. My cousin. My Don. The man who ordered me to live and swore he'd kill me himself if I disobeyed.

The logic was bad.

The love wasn't.

"You're late," he says.

"Traffic on the way back from the dead."

His mouth pulls sideways.

He crosses the marble, takes my hand, then my shoulder. Careful. Deliberate. A man who knows what it costs to be touched wrong after doctors and blood and too many people deciding what your body can survive.

"We've been waiting for you two," he says. "And Antonella is starving, so you have about four minutes before this becomes a hostage situation."

Antonella steps around him, one hand resting on the curve of her stomach.

"Valentino." She kisses both my cheeks, then leans back and looks me over. Sweet face, brutal assessment. "You look terrible. Better than Bruno described, but terrible."

"She'll start complaining in about ten minutes," Bruno says. "The baby has opinions about mealtimes."

"The baby is right," Antonella says. "The baby is the only one in this family with sense."

Across the foyer, Amanda is still wrapped around Vittoria. Aria has an arm around both of them. My mother is already fussing at the edges, moving everyone toward food because Conti women have handled grief, joy, blood feuds, births, funerals, and bad news the same way for generations. Sit down. Eat something. Then we decide who dies.

Amanda looks up over Vittoria's shoulder and finds me.

Just a glance.

One corner of her mouth lifts, only for me.

We made it, that look says.

I nod once.

We did.

Bruno's hand lands on my shoulder again, lighter this time, and his voice drops below the noise around us.

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE

Amanda

Vittoria's old bedroom still smells like a Sephora exploded inside a computer repair shop.

The desk is bare now, all the monitors are gone to Dmitri's place, but the dent in the wall from the hard drive she threw is still there. I'm weirdly comforted by the dent.