Chapter 5

"You want to bring a Russo's wife into this house."

Enzo's voice carried down the hallway before Serena even reached the door, low but sharp enough that she stopped just outside it, Mia finally asleep against her shoulder. She hadn't meant to eavesdrop. She was too tired to do much of anything except stand there and listen.

"Former wife," Salvatore corrected. "And yes."

"You don't know anything about her."

"I know enough."

Serena leaned closer to the doorframe despite herself.

"She could be lying," said a third voice, younger, calmer than the other two. "People say all kinds of things when they've got nowhere else to go."

"She's not lying, Nico," Salvatore said. "I saw her face when she talked about her father. Nobody fakes that."

"You're a terrible judge of faces," Enzo said. "You thought that arms dealer from Marseille was trustworthy too."

"That's different."

"Is it?"

Serena pressed her hand against the wall, steadying herself. She should have felt afraid, standing outside a room full of men deciding her fate like she wasn't a person at all, just a problem to be solved. Instead she just felt hollow, too worn down for fear to fully land.

"She's got nothing left," Enzo said, his voice quieter now. "No family, no money and a baby who needs somewhere safe to sleep tonight. I don't care whose ring she was wearing an hour ago. We don't turn people away in that condition."

"Since when do you make decisions for this family," Salvatore said, though there wasn't much heat behind it.

"Since you started looking at her like a chess piece instead of a person."

A pause settled over the room.

"She is a chess piece," Salvatore said finally. "Whether we like it or not Don Vitale disowned her in front of two families tonight. Damiano Russo humiliated her to protect himself and that makes her valuable to us whether she wants to be or not."

"And if we use her like that," Enzo said, "we're no better than the people who threw her out in the first place."

Nobody answered right away.

Serena finally pushed the door open, done listening to strangers argue about what to do with her like she wasn't standing close enough to hear every word.

Three men turned toward her at once.

The one who'd found her outside stood near the fireplace, arms crossed, that same calculating look still sitting behind his eyes, Salvatore. Beside him, a younger man with a softer face watched her with something closer to concern, and she guessed correctly that this was Enzo, the one who'd been arguing for her.

The third sat apart from the others, near a laptop that glowed against his face in the dim light. He hadn't said much, but his eyes tracked her carefully as she walked in, studying her the way you study something that doesn't quite fit the pattern you expected.

"I can hear you," Serena said. "Through the door. If you're going to decide what happens to me, you might as well do it to my face."

Salvatore's mouth twitched, almost a smile. "Direct, good."

"I don't want to be anyone's chess piece," Serena said, looking at him directly. "But I also don't have anywhere else to go tonight, so I'll take whatever help you're willing to give, and we can figure out the rest tomorrow."

Enzo stepped forward first. "You can stay as long as you need."

"That's not your call alone to make," Salvatore said, though he wasn't looking at Enzo when he said it. He was still looking at Serena, like he was reading something written just under her skin.

"She just lost everything," Enzo said. "That's enough of a reason."

"It's not enough of a reason for me," Salvatore said. "But I have my own reasons for letting her stay, so it doesn't matter whose argument wins."

Serena felt something tighten in her chest at that, some instinct warning her not to trust the ease in his voice. She filed it away instead of answering it out loud. She was too tired to fight a war tonight she didn't fully understand yet.

The one by the laptop finally spoke.

"You didn't cry once," he said, studying her with open curiosity now. "Since you walked in. Most people who've lost what you just lost can't stop."

"I ran out of tears somewhere on the road here," Serena said honestly.

"Interesting," he said, more to himself than to her, though something in his tone told her it was a compliment. "I'm Nico."

"Serena."

"We know who you are," Salvatore said. "That's rather the point."

Enzo shot him a look, then turned back to Serena, his voice gentler now. "There's a room upstairs. It's not much, but it's warm, and no one's going to bother you or your daughter tonight."

Serena hesitated at the door, glancing back at all three of them, three strangers deciding whether she was worth protecting or worth using, possibly both at once.

"Thank you," she said finally, because she meant it, even if she didn't trust any of them yet.

As she turned to follow Enzo out, she caught Salvatore's voice behind her, low, meant for his brothers and not for her.

"Let her settle in," he said. "Then we find out exactly how much a disowned Vitale daughter with a grudge against the Russo family is really worth."

Serena kept walking like she hadn't heard him, but her stomach twisted at the words, and somewhere deep down she understood this house wasn't safety yet. It was just a different kind of danger, one she'd have to learn to survive all over again.