Chapter 2
CHAPTER TWO
Kristen
The smell of burnt toast fills our cramped apartment at six-fifteen in the morning.
Perfect. Just perfect.
I wave a dish towel at the smoke detector before it can scream and wake the entire building.
The toaster—a temperamental beast I picked up at Goodwill for three dollars—has betrayed me again.
I fish out the blackened bread with a fork and toss it in the trash, already calculating if we have enough for another attempt.
We do. Barely.
"Mommy?" Lily's voice drifts from the bedroom, sleep-soft and curious. "What's that smell?"
"Nothing, baby girl. Just breakfast being difficult."
She pads into the kitchen in her unicorn pajamas, brown curls a wild halo around her face. Four years old and already wise enough to know when I'm lying. She inherited that from me. The ability to read people. Not from him.
I crouch down and open my arms. She crashes into me, all warm skin and that particular scent. I breathe her in. This. This is why I left.
"Pancakes?" she asks, hopeful.
I glance at the near-empty pantry. "Toast with peanut butter today. Pancake Saturday is coming."
She considers this with the gravity of a Supreme Court justice. "With chocolate chips?"
"If you eat all your vegetables this week."
"Deal." She sticks out her tiny hand, and we shake on it.
These mornings used to be different. Before.
When I was still with Jack, mornings meant walking on eggshells.
Keeping Lily quiet so she wouldn't disturb him.
Making sure his coffee was ready before he woke, eggs done exactly how he liked them.
which changed depending on his mood, so I never actually got it right.
I'd hold my breath when his footsteps hit the hallway, trying to read the weight of them.
Heavy meant bad night. Heavier meant worse morning for me.
Now mornings are ours. Messy and imperfect and ours.
I pop two new slices in the toaster, keeping a closer eye this time. Lily climbs onto her booster seat at our tiny table and starts arranging her stuffed rabbit collection. Three rabbits. She's named them all variations of "Bunny." Bunny, Bunbun, and Sir Floppington the Third.
Sir Floppington was my contribution. She thought it was hilarious.
My phone buzzes. I don't have to look to know who it is but I do.
Mom: Good morning sweetheart! Just checking in. Did you think about what I said?
I did think about it. I thought about it while staring at the ceiling at two a.m., stomach churning with the particular brand of rage and hurt that only your mother can inspire.
What she said was that I should give Jack another chance. That marriage is hard work. That he seemed so devastated when she talked to him last week, and surely I was being too harsh.
Too harsh. After years of being erased piece by piece until I couldn't recognize myself in the mirror.
I type back: Morning Mom. Busy getting Lily ready. Talk later.
I won't talk later. She knows it. I know it. But we maintain the fiction because that's what we do.
"Who's that?" Lily asks, not looking up from her rabbit arrangement.
"Grandma saying good morning."
"Oh." A pause. "Is Grandma coming over?"
"Not today, baby."
Relief flickers across her face. She's four. She shouldn't be relieved that her grandmother isn't visiting.
But Lily picks up on things. Kids are sponges for emotional temperature, and mine has been soaking up the wrong lessons for too long.
I never say his name in front of her. Never talk about the divorce. Not that it's finalized, because he keeps stalling the paperwork. To Lily, Daddy is just... not here anymore. And that's okay. That has to be okay.
The toast pops up. Golden brown this time. Small victories.
I spread peanut butter in careful strokes, cutting off the crusts because she hates them, arranging the triangles on her favorite plate. The one with the dancing elephants. Another Goodwill find. Our whole life is secondhand, but at least it's ours.
"Here you go, baby girl."
She takes a bite and grins at me, peanut butter already smearing her chin. My heart cracks open a little. The good kind of crack. The kind that lets light in instead of darkness.
I sit across from her with my own breakfast. Black coffee and the toast crusts she rejected. Protein would be nice, but the grocery budget doesn't stretch that far until Friday.
My phone buzzes again. Different number this time.
Automated Payment Reminder: Your monthly payment of $1,500 is due in 3 days.
The peanut butter toast turns to sawdust in my mouth.
Eighty-seven thousand dollars. That number haunts my dreams. It follows me through every shift, every tip counted, every coupon clipped.
The debt was supposed to be for Lily's surgery when she was eight months old.
A heart defect that needed immediate correction.
Jack handled the paperwork because I was too terrified, too exhausted, too focused on keeping my baby alive to read the fine print.
Stupid. So stupid.
I shove the phone face-down on the table. The payment comes out automatically now. Fifteen hundred dollars that eats through my bank account like acid every month. Leaves me scrambling for the rest.
"Mommy, you're making the face."
I blink. "What face?"
"The sad face." Lily tilts her head, studying me with those gray-blue eyes that mirror my own. "Your mouth goes like this." She demonstrates, pressing her lips into a thin line.
God. She's too observant. Too tuned into my moods.
I force my expression to soften. "Just thinking about boring grown-up stuff, baby girl. Nothing for you to worry about."
She accepts this with a nod and returns to her toast. Sir Floppington gets a bite too, which means I'll be washing peanut butter out of fake fur later.
Today is my day off. No work until tomorrow night, when I'll squeeze into the black-and-white uniform and serve champagne to people who spend more on appetizers than I make in a month.
Some fancy gala downtown. The catering company calls me when they need extra hands.
Which isn't often enough, but it pays cash same night.
My mother agreed to watch Lily. She'd agreed with that particular tone in her voice. The one that says I'm doing you a favor and you owe me gratitude.
I'll take it. I don't have a choice.
The phone buzzes a third time. I flip it over, expecting another debt reminder or my mother's passive-aggressive follow-up.
Jack: Video call with Lily at 5pm? Miss my princess.
My jaw tightens. Miss his princess. Right. He misses her so much he moved to New York for a "career opportunity" two months after I left him. Didn't fight for custody. Didn't even ask for visitation rights. Just... vanished into his new life with her.
The mistress. Twenty-three years old, blonde, works at some marketing firm.
I found out about her six months before I finally left.
The discovery wasn't even dramatic. No lipstick on collars or mysterious charges on credit cards.
Just his phone lighting up while he showered, and me finally having the courage to look.
Hey baby, can't wait to see you tonight.
I'd stood there in our bedroom and felt nothing.
That's what scared me most. Not anger. Not heartbreak. Just a hollow recognition that I'd been gone from this marriage long before I knew it.
Fine, I type back now. 5pm works.
He'll call from wherever he actually is. Probably her apartment. Probably with her hovering just off-screen, waiting for him to finish this inconvenient obligation to his daughter. He told everyone he took a position with some investment firm in Manhattan. A fresh start. A chance to rebuild.
Jack is a good liar. The best I've ever met. He lies the way other people breathe.
I used to believe every word.
Lily finishes her toast and holds up her plate. "All done!"
"Good girl. Let's get you cleaned up."
I wipe her face with a damp paper towel while she squirms and giggles. Normal morning. Normal routine. The kind of ordinary I fought so hard to build.
As I rinse her plate in the sink, I catch my reflection in the window. Tired eyes. Hair scraped back in a messy bun.
I don't miss Jack.
The realization still surprises me sometimes. Years of marriage, and I feel lighter without him. Like I'd been carrying rocks in my pockets and didn't notice until I finally set them down.
Why did it take so long?
The question circles my mind as I help Lily pick out clothes for the day. Purple shirt with a butterfly. Pink leggings. Mismatched socks because she insists that's her "style."
Why did I stay? Why did I believe him when he said I was overreacting? Why did I apologize for things that weren't my fault? Why did I shrink and shrink and shrink until I barely existed?
I don't have answers. Maybe I never will.
But I'm here now. Broke, exhausted, drowning in debt I still don't fully understand.
Free.
"Mommy?" Lily tugs my sleeve. "Can we go to the park today?"
I check my mental calendar. No work. No appointments. Just us.
"Yeah, baby girl." I smile, and this time it's real. "Let's go to the park."
Nico
The commotion starts before I see them.
Raised voices echo through the compound's foyer.
I'm already moving toward the noise when Pietro appears at my shoulder.
"Brace yourself," he mutters.
"For what?"
The front doors burst open.
Aria Sartori sweeps into the compound like a Mediterranean storm. All silk and barely contained fury. At sixty-three, our mother still moves like she owns every room she enters. Because she does. Her silver-streaked dark hair is pulled back severely, emphasizing her cheekbones.
Behind her, Valentino fills the doorway.
My cousin stands six-three, broad as a wall, with the kind of weathered look that comes from years under the Sicilian sun.
Gray threads through his black hair at the temples now.
His dark eyes scan the foyer before he even crosses the threshold.
Old habits. We share that particular paranoia.