Page 83 of The Cost of Silence

I blink at the question. Most of mine are gone, melted or smoked out of existence. Grief flickers, sharp and familiar, but I breathe through it. “Maybe…” I reach into the box beside me andpull out the snow globe I bought earlier, the tiny town square, frozen in glitter-snow. “This one.”

“That’s not an ornament,” Letty points out.

“No,” I smile. “But it reminds me of home.”

“Will you show me where to put it?” she asks.

My throat tightens. “Yeah,” I whisper. “I’d like that.”

We put it on one of the shelves by the window, where the light hits it just right.

Letty shakes it, eyes wide as the glitter swirls. “Magic,” she whispers.

My heart gives a funny, painful little lurch. “Yeah,” I say. “Exactly.”

After the ornaments come the garlands. I loop them along the stair railing and around the columns, stopping every so often to stretch my ribs. Nico watches me with hawk-like focus; the second my face tightens, he’s there, plucking whatever I’m holding out of my hands.

“Slow down,” he murmurs. “You’re still healing.”

“I’m fine,” I protest.

He gives me a look. Thelying to me will get you punishedlook.

I huff. “Okay. Slightly less than fine. Moderate fine.”

He doesn’t smile, but something like it flickers across his eyes. “Sit. Direct. Let us do the work.”

“You’re very bossy, you know that?”

“So I’ve been told.”

I end up on the couch, Letty pressed to my side, both of us supervising while the brothers handle the last of the heavy lifting. She chatters quietly about school and her favorite cartoons. I tell her about my mom’s legendary gingerbread cookies and her horrible, judgmental angel statue.

“Do you miss your papa?” she asks suddenly.

The question hits like a sucker punch, small and earnest. I swallow. “Yeah,” I say. “I do.”

She thinks about that, nodding like it’s a serious and important answer. Then she pats my hand with her small one. “I miss my Nonno,” she says. “But Papa says we can talk about him whenever we want.”

My chest aches. “Your Nonno was a good man,” I say, knowing it’s true, even from the outside. From Nico’s grief. From the way these brothers orbit the space where he used to be.

“Mmm,” she says confidently. “He bought the biggest trees.”

“Of course he did,” I murmur.

When the last ornament is hung and the last garland draped, Nico moves to the wall and flicks off the main lights.

The penthouse transforms.

Warm white lights glow from the tree and the railings, reflecting off the glass, softening all the sharp edges of steel and stone. The snowy branches sparkle faintly; the ornaments catch the light, tiny stars in their own little universe.

It’s… beautiful.

My throat goes tight.

“Ready?” Matteo whispers loudly.

Letty bounces on her toes. “Ready!”