Aria POV
Zia Lyra had already appeared on the front steps of her brownstone, one hand resting on the wrought-iron railing, when she froze mid-descent. Her gaze sharpened the way it always did when she was reading a situation, flicking between me and the pair standing near the building's entrance. I knew exactly what was forming behind her lips, so I spoke first.
"Mom sent supplies for you. Some of it's perishable, so you'll want to get it sorted before it turns."
I didn't look at Nicholas. Not once. The man had made his loyalties clear enough over the past few weeks that I no longer needed to search his face for answers. But today, he surprised me by speaking, his voice wrapped in that careful, practiced calm he wore like armor.
"Aria, don't misunderstand. Selena's old place was too close to unaffiliated territory. No protection, no one watching the street. I couldn't leave her there. So I found her something safer, closer to our people. I didn't realize it was this close to your aunt's building." He paused, his eyes drifting to the crates being unloaded from the trunk. "Why do you have so much with you?"
I gestured for the driver to carry the boxes through the front door and into Zia Lyra's kitchen, keeping my voice light, almost bored. "You don't need to explain yourself to me, Nicholas. My mother bought all of this. We don't know when we'll be back out this way, so she sent extra."
Something in Nicholas's posture loosened. A barely perceptible easing of the shoulders, the way a man exhales when he realizes a gun isn't pointed at him after all. His relief only sharpened the blade already turning in my chest.
"No problem. The Mancini district isn't far from here. Just let me know if you need anything," he said, easy and casual, as though we were still the kind of people who could exchange favors and pleasantries. As though the last eight years hadn't calcified into something cold and brittle between us.
He didn't know I was staying here for good. And I had no intention of telling him.
Zia Lyra, who had been watching the exchange with the stillness of a woman who had survived decades inside this world, finally spoke. "Nicholas, you've known Aria since she was barely more than a girl. Is this really where things stand between you two? It would be a shame to let misunderstandings destroy what took so long to build."
Before Nicholas could answer, I shook my head. My voice came out steady, harder than I intended. "There's no misunderstanding, Zia. Nicholas doesn't let things linger in the dark. If he hasn't explained himself by now, then there's nothing left to explain."
Selena shifted beside him, her expression artfully drawn into something fragile and exhausted. Nicholas noticed immediately. His attention swung to her like a compass finding north.
"You look pale," he murmured, his tone softening in a way that felt like a hand pressing against a bruise.
He turned to the driver. "Hold off on the rest of the deliveries. We'll take the elevator up first."
I stepped aside to let them pass, the way you step aside for a funeral procession. Nicholas hesitated at the elevator doors, his dark eyes cutting to mine for one brief, searching moment. I gave him nothing. My face was stone. He turned away and ushered Selena inside, his hand hovering at the small of her back.
As the elevator doors slid shut, I caught their reflection in the polished steel. Selena's wide, grateful eyes tilted up toward him. Nicholas's broad frame angled protectively over hers, his jaw set with quiet purpose.
The image cracked something open inside me. A memory I hadn't invited. Years ago, when Nicholas had first told me I was his. When he'd carried my suitcases into the Valenti estate himself, grinning like a man who'd won a war, telling anyone who would listen that I was going to be the Donna of the Valenti Syndicate. That I was his future. That he'd move heaven and hell to keep me.
I closed my eyes and let the memory pass through me like smoke.
Zia Lyra sighed beside me, her expression heavy with the particular sadness of a woman who has watched too many young hearts get ground down by this life. "Are you really all right with this, Aria?"
I turned to her and managed something that might have passed for a smile. "I don't have a choice. If this is where his loyalty lies, then so be it."
After making sure the supplies were properly stored in Zia Lyra's kitchen, I decided to leave before whatever composure I had left crumbled in front of her. But as I stood on the sidewalk waiting for the driver to pull the car around, Nicholas and Selena were still upstairs. Their absence gnawed at me, a dull, persistent ache that I hated myself for feeling.
Out of some residual courtesy to what we had once been, I pulled out my phone and sent him a short message.
When are you heading back?
The response came almost immediately, though not in the way I'd expected. A voice message.
I pressed play. Selena's sweet, carefully pitched voice filled my ear.
"Aria, Nicholas is helping me with the wiring. This place hasn't been lived in for a while, so there's a lot to sort out. You should head home. Don't let us hold you up."
I stared at the screen for a long moment. The evening light caught the glass and threw my own reflection back at me, and I barely recognized the woman looking back. Something hot and pitiful was rising in my chest, threatening to spill, but I swallowed it the way I'd learned to swallow everything in this world. Quietly. Completely.
I closed the chat and climbed into the waiting car.
Another message buzzed through before I'd even settled against the leather seat.
By the way, Aria, please don't take this the wrong way. Nicholas is just helping me out because he feels sorry for me. It's hard living alone when you're new to a Family's territory.
The bitterness hit the back of my throat like cheap wine. She wanted me to know. Wanted me to picture exactly how closely she leaned on him, how readily he came when she called. Every word was a needle, placed with surgical precision.
I barely noticed when Nicholas's name lit up my phone moments later. I answered on instinct, and his voice came through sharp, edged with frustration.
"Aria, why were you so cold to Selena earlier? She's under my protection. It's my responsibility to make sure she's safe. Her situation is temporary until the Family finds her proper accommodations. Is it really so unreasonable for me to help her?"
I laughed. It was a bitter, airless sound, stripped of anything resembling humor. "Since when do you go out of your way for people under your protection? At the Christmas Eve dinner last year, you disappeared early because you said you weren't feeling well. I didn't question it. I sat at that table alone and smiled at your men and made excuses for you. But now you're moving heaven and earth for her?"
Through the phone, I heard it. Soft, trembling sobs. Selena's sobs. Perfectly timed, perfectly fragile, the kind of crying that made a man's hands curl into fists and his chest swell with the need to shield something.
Her voice came through, thin and wounded. "Nicholas, maybe I should leave. I don't want to cause trouble between you and Aria."
Nicholas's response was immediate, visceral. His voice dropped low, carrying that dangerous edge I knew too well. The tone of a man drawing a line. "No one's leaving, Selena. Don't listen to her."
My chest constricted. He hadn't used that tone for me in years. That protective, absolute certainty. That willingness to put himself between someone and the world. Once, that voice had been mine. Once, it had been the only thing that made me feel safe in a world built on blood and silence.
I took a slow breath. Held it. Let it go.
"Fine, Nicholas. You're right. My mistake for asking." My voice was even, controlled, the way my mother had taught me a Castellano woman speaks when she is breaking apart. "Don't worry. I've already left. You don't need to come back for me."
I ended the call before he could form another word, cutting the line clean, the way you sever a thread before it tangles into something you can't undo.
