Page 82 of The Cost of Silence

It does something to me I don’t have words for.

“You okay?” Nico murmurs in my ear, low enough no one else will hear.

I startle slightly; I hadn’t realized he’d moved that close. “Yeah,” I say. “Just… taking this in.”

“This?” He follows my gaze, Adi, Letty, and Matteo dramatically arguing with a strand of tinsel.

“Yeah,” I say quietly. “It’s… nice. Seeing you like this.”

“Like what?”

“Like a family,” slips out before I can stop it.

His jaw flexes once. For a second, I think I’ve pushed too far. Poked at a wound that is still bleeding.

Then he says, softer, “We are. Even without him, we’re a family.”

“But it still hurts, doesn’t it?” He nods, his eyes on his brothers, as his hands find my waist, just holding me close. “It gets easier. You learn to live with the hole they leave. It’s all the firsts that hurt the most.”

“We should’ve invited your mother.”

I shake my head. “No, it would complicate things. This is a moment in time for us all, not forever, and I don’t want to involve her in something that isn’t going to last.” I watch a shadow cross his features before he nods and drops a kiss on my lips.

“Okay.”

Not an argument. Not a deflection.

A fact.

Warmth spreads through my chest, unexpected and a little dangerous, but it feels weighed by an ache, because the fact is, I wish this was forever, and that’s more dangerous than any gangster trying to kill me.

“Izzy!” Matteo calls. “We need your expert eye. Does this side say, ‘tasteful luxury’ or ‘drunk elf’?”

I squint at the tree. One strand of lights is definitely listing left. “Drunk elf.”

“I knew it,” he mutters, going back in.

“Who the hell is Izzy?” Nico barks, a possessive look on his face.

Matteo smirks. “What? It’s a nickname. You call her Belle.”

“That’s different. You don’t get to give her nicknames, numb nuts.”

I laugh, secretly delighted in this show of jealousy. “Izzy is fine. Some of my friends call me Izzy.”

“See, she doesn’t mind and now that means we’re friends. So bite me, big brother.”

“Or I could shoot you.”

Adi throws his hands up. “Will you two give it a rest?”

“He started it,” Matteo defends.

“Well, I’m ending it.”

Watching this back and forth makes them so real to me. Not mobsters or dangerous killers or powerful CEOs, but brothers who fight and joke and love and grieve together.

Letty leans toward me from her spot on Adi’s hip. “Which ornament is your favorite?” she asks seriously.