Page 67 of The Silent Hour

Ellie and Aria shared a conspiratorial look before answering together.

"Taeha Lombardi."

Lombardi.

I knew that name well. Old money. Mansions overlooking Biscayne Bay. High society polished enough to distract from the filth festering beneath its foundations. I knew the name from the underground too, the place where men kept score in blood and debts survived long after the people who owed them didn't.

Julia froze for half a second, fork hovering over her plate before she carefully lowered it. Her eyes found mine. Recognition. Sometimes I forgot she knew just as much, if not more than I did about certain people. It was not a good feeling.

"Oh, and he's nice?" she asked, feigning casual curiosity.

Aria's head bobbed. "And transacted."

Julia frowned. "Aria, what do you mean he was... what did you say?"

Ellie gave her sister one of her most withering glares. "Adopted, Riri. Adopted."

Julia turned toward Aria, her voice gentle but firm. "We don't say adopted kids are transacted. That's not how it works."

Aria shrugged, completely unbothered.

Ellie immediately took offense. "Don't say stuff if you're going to say it wrong!"

"Why are you yelling when I'm sitting right here?" Aria asked flatly.

I hid my grin behind my glass. God help me, it was too damn funny. Aria's straight-faced delivery. Ellie's righteous indignation. Julia looking approximately thirty seconds from asking why she'd ever reproduced with me.

"The point," Julia said, fighting her own smile, "is that we use the right words. Adopted. Not the other one. We don't want to hurt anyone's feelings."

"Okay." Aria shrugged again.

I leaned back, warmth spreading through me as I looked at all three of them. My entire world fit around that table. The Lombardi name lingered somewhere in the back of my mind, though. Our daughters would always be around families like that. Old names. Powerful money. Legacies wrapped in Versace silk with razor wire underneath. Hell, some of their closest friends came from families with enough skeletons to fill their sprawling estates.

Still, this was the first time Ellie had smiled that hard over a boy. When the fuck did little girls start getting crushes? I forced my expression neutral before Julia caught me.

She caught me anyway—amused. Of course, she did. Dinner wound down with the girls whispering behind cupped hands they apparently believed made them soundproof. When the plates were cleared, I caught Julia's eye.

"Settle the girls. I'll clean up, then come upstairs with a drink, and we'll talk."

She nodded once. She knew this wasn't going to be light conversation. I kissed each of my daughters' goodnight. Ellie threw both arms around my neck with octopus-like determination while Aria planted a quick kiss against my cheek before they took off toward the stairs.

"Don't run in the damn house," Julia called after them.

I grinned. My wife, the enforcer. Everything felt too quiet the second they disappeared upstairs. I could never live a life without them. They weren't simply part of it. They were it. I cleaned the kitchen methodically, scraping plates, loading the dishwasher, wiping down the table until every fingerprint and water ring disappeared.

When I finished, I crossed to the antique bar cart and poured two fingers of Macallan 18 into heavy-bottomed tumblers. Mine neat. Julia's over a single cube of ice. For the conversation we were about to have, she'd probably prefer the bottle, but I needed her sober.

Cortez had dropped something into my lap today that I still hadn't fully processed myself, and I wanted Julia to hear it exactly as it had happened, without my frustration distorting it. By the time I made it upstairs, she'd showered and changed into a black silk kimono robe trimmed in lace.

I stopped in the doorway.

Her hair was still damp, falling over one shoulder. The robe skimmed the body I'd memorized years ago and somehow still managed to make me forget whatever the fuck I'd been thinking about two seconds earlier.

She looked at me. "What?"

"Trying to kill me before we even start?"

Her mouth curved. "Focus, counselor."