18. SOPHIE
SOPHIE
I’m at the Arsenal, finding the quiet space between lunch and dinner services, when Siena appears in the doorway wearing Emilia in a carrier and an expression of distress so intense that I almost stop breathing.
“Back here,” I say, waving her around to follow me to my office before she says a word.
She follows me through the kitchen, her and Rocco locking eyes as we pass the dish station. When we’re in my office, she asks, “New dishwasher?”
“Old one, actually,” I say, half closing the door behind her so I can keep an ear on what’s happening in the kitchen. “That’s Rocco.”
Siena’s eyes widen as I try to make room for her in the mess of papers, cookbooks, dishes, linens, and aprons. I really tried to keep the new Arsenal office looking better than the old one, but messy habits die hard.
“Sophie! The abusive Rocco? The douchebag who fucked you and wouldn’t date you Rocco? Why is here?”
“Don’t start,” I say lightly. “He’s doing well so far, took a demotion without complaint, and I needed a dishwasher. First sign of the old behavior, and he’s gone.”
She holds up one hand in surrender and bounces Emilia gently as the baby grabs a fistful of her mother’s hair and pulls. I reach over and untangle her tiny fingers from Siena’s hair without thinking, and Emilia immediately lunges toward me, arms outstretched.
“She misses her auntie,” Siena says.
“Her auntie has been here every single day since opening.” I take Emilia, settling her on my hip. She smells like baby powder and milk, and it makes my chest ache. “What’s wrong?”
Siena is quiet for too long, and real worry begins to build.
“What,” I say, “is wrong.”
She exhales through her nose. “It’s Vin.”
I furrow my eyebrows. That’s unexpected. Siena looks really stressed out but something being wrong with Vin, the man she probably hates most in the world, wouldn’t even have been my last guess.
“Okay,” I say.
“He’s not okay.”
“He’s never okay.” I wipe off a random spoon on my desk with my apron and hand it to Emilia to keep her occupied. “That’s not a crisis, that’s a personality trait.”
“Sophie.” Siena’s voice is soft and tired. “He hasn’t left the Demonio estate in I don’t know how long. He’s been drinking nonstop, fighting with Matti and Tommy. He banned them from the property and when I brought him your pastina, he threw it against the wall. The pastina.”
I keep my face very still. I can’t imagine Vin rejecting amazing food. Maybe this isn’t just a personality trait. “And?”
“The funeral is in three days.”
Emilia bangs the spoon cheerfully against my arm.
“He needs to be there,” Siena continues. “Not just for the optics. For himself. For the family. For Matti and Tommy and everyone who has been waiting for him to step up and be the boss he’s been waiting to become.”
I nod. She doesn’t have to say what happens if he doesn’t go, how that looks to friends and enemies alike, what that means for the Demonio Brotherhood, and ultimately for her and Emilia if Matti is targeted.
I press my lips together. “That’s terrible. Truly.” I hand Emilia back to her mother. “Call his fiancée.”
Siena blinks. “What?”
“Ashlyn.” I say the name carefully. “Call Ashlyn. She’s the one he’s building his life with. She’s the one he should be leaning on. She’s the one who—that’s what a partner is for, Siena. Call his fiancée.”
“Ashlyn doesn’t know him.” Her voice is quiet. “She doesn’t know our family. And he’s not in love with—”
I shake my head. “Don’t finish that sentence.
We haven’t even been around each other in over a year.
” I hope she can’t see the events of New Year’s Eve on my face, the memory of his cock inside me, the way he grabbled me, pinned me, fucked me, not to mention the other night in my bed— “There’s no way that me showing up makes any sense. ”
Siena leans toward me, Emilia in her arms. “Sophie. I am not here to manipulate you or guilt you or make this worse than it already is. I am telling you that I have never seen him like this. Matti’s never seen him like this, not once in all the years he’s known him.”
“Maybe Matti can do something—”
“Matti hit him. Tommy’s not far behind.”
“Then Tommy—”
“Tommy says there’s nothing left to say.”
I push papers around on my desk and sigh. There’s no way I can do this. “Siena—”
“He hasn’t been with anyone. Matti told me.
Since you two—since things ended, he hasn’t been with anyone.
And if you knew Vin before, you’d know that that is…
” She trails off. I did know Vin before us.
I watched as his gaze landed on every beautiful woman in the room.
And never on me until I was the only option.
“He’s never been in love before, Sophie. Not once. Not with anyone. Nobody knows what to do with him right now because nobody has ever seen him like this and they don’t know how to reach him.”
“He doesn’t love me.” The words are automatic, practiced. I say them to myself every day as a reminder.
“I’m not saying it’s going to fix everything,” she says carefully.
“I’m not saying it’s going to fix anything.
I’m just saying that you are the only person who has any chance of getting through to him right now.
And if he doesn’t show at that funeral—” She stops.
“There are a lot of people whose lives depend on him getting his act together. Matti. Tommy. Everyone who works for them. Their families. My daughter.”
Emilia, on cue, reaches toward me again.
I look at the ceiling.
I know what Siena is doing. I know exactly what she’s doing, and it’s working anyway. The thought of Emilia losing a father, of Siena losing a husband, of their safety being affected in any way—it’s too much to bear. If there’s anything I can do to stop that, I have to try.
I think about what she said about Vin a long time ago: just because you understand why someone is broken doesn’t mean you have to be the one to fix them.
I don’t know if I can fix him or even if he wants to be fixed. But if there’s anything I can do for my cousin and my beautiful little niece, I will.
I pick up some papers. Put them down. Pick them up again.
“He’s going to make me feel like garbage,” I say. “You know that.”
“Probably.”
“He’s going to say something awful.”
“Almost definitely.”
“And he has a fiancée who should be—”
“I know.”
Siena and I share a grim look as Emilia bats her eyes at me.
I close my eyes. “Dang it.” I exhale the word. “Fine.”
Siena’s shoulders drop visibly. “Thank you. I’ll tell Matti to set up a plane for you.”
“Don’t thank me.” I untie my apron. “This isn’t going to go well.”
She balances Emilia on her hip as she pulls out her phone. I gather my things, pulling on my coat.
On our way out, I pause in the kitchen and get my staff’s attention, scanning the prep stations strewn with food. “Good. Looks like you guys are on top of everything. You’re going to handle things without me tonight.”
The energy in the room shifts as they all turn back to their stations with a chorus of “Yes, Chef.”
I turn to Rocco in the dish room and he nods. “Don’t worry, Chef. I’ve got this.”
I watch him for a long moment. “Don’t make me regret this, Rocco.”
He nods and Siena tugs on my sleeve, pulling me toward the door.
As we head out the door and I follow her into the back seat of her car, waving hello to the driver, the gravity of what I’m about to do hits me.
And I feel completely unprepared yet somehow, very very calm too. In fact, I feel fine.
As Siena settles Emilia into her car seat, she glances over at me. “For what it’s worth, I genuinely think he loves you. You know I don’t say it lightly.”
I don’t answer. How he feels is immaterial. What he does is the only thing that matters right now.