Page 158 of The Cost of Silence

“Don’t torment the cat,” Adi calls from the table, where he’s setting out plates with the same precision he brings to corporate audits.

“I’m not tormenting him,” she says. “I’m beautifying him.”

My mother, seated at the island with a glass of wine, hides a smile behind her hand. “She has your stubbornness,” she murmurs to Adi.

He gives her a look. “I’ll pretend that’s a compliment.”

“Why did you have to get her a kitten, anyway?” Matteo asks from his place in the kitchen.

“Because she nagged me until I gave in.”

Nico snickers. “Whipped, by a tiny terrorist.”

Adi snorts and rolls his eyes. “Like you can talk. Isabella only has to say she likes something, and you’ve bought it before she can finish her sentence.”

“Not true.”

I walk toward my husband of three months, and slide my arms around his waist, putting my lips to his ear. “Kinda true.”

He hooks me closer and kisses me hard, just how I like it, not a care that our family is around and I sigh into him. “You’re meant to be on my side.”

“I’m always on your side, Nic.”

His lips find my ear, and he whispers low in that voice that drives me wild. “Or your back, or front, or bent over the kitchen table.”

A blush steals over my cheeks as I think about last night, when he had me on my hands and knees in his office.

“Behave.”

“Never.”

He laughs and it’s my favorite sound in the world, and one I hear a lot more now. It hasn’t been easy but we’re here, and stronger for what we went through.

The tree is up again, this time with fewer arguments about wreaths and more laughter about last year’s chaos. The Santa-with-a-gun ornament hangs in his rightful place near, but not at, the top, because “you’re still a work in progress” as I informed Nico when I hung it earlier.

He rolled his eyes and then kissed me senseless in front of it, so I think we’re both happy with the arrangement.

Rossi is propped on the sofa, writing place names for the table. Who knew the man had such impeccable handwriting. His recovery was slower than he would have liked, but he had people around him to help, and he and my mother have grown close, though both deny it’s anything more than friendship.

“I’m fine,” he grumbles as I bring him a mug of coffee. “You’d think I died.”

“You almost did,” I remind him, easing down beside him. “Twice.”

“Details,” he says, taking the mug. His eyes soften. “You did good, kid.”

“I had a very loud teacher,” I reply, laying my head on his shoulder.

His gaze flicks to Nico, who’s currently arguing with Matteo about the proper ratio of marshmallow to sweet potato.

“I mean it,” Rossi says quietly. “You kept your head. You kept mine attached. That’s more than most.”

Emotion swells in my throat. “Thank you,” I say, and it doesn’t feel like enough.

He just grunts, the verbal equivalent of a shrug, and focuses on pretending his coffee is spiked when it isn’t. The doctors have him on a strict regimen; Nico enforces it with terrifying zeal.

The television in the corner plays a muted news report about the fall of a “once-feared Brighton Beach figurehead.” Orlov is finally out of play, snared in a net of federal indictments, financial charges, and a few well-placed leaks that came from sources who will never see their names in print. I wander to the window and look out at the skyline lit up with lights and feel a contentment I didn’t know was possible.

One of those sources was mine.