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“A woman doesn’t abandon a decade of ladder for love, Tesoro, and certainly not that woman. I watched her at the gala—she calculates, she doesn’t swoon.” She smiles, almost warm, which is when she’s most dangerous. “Which worries me. For your heart. I would hate to see you get hurt again.”

“Not true. You’re only happy when it’s you doing the hurting.”

She waves off the accusation like an annoying fly come to ruin her picnic. “Your marriage has a smell. I haven’t decided what it is, but I have people deciding. They’re thorough, and Matteo is not the only loud half of this family.”

“If you’re smelling something off, Allegra, it might be the story your people sold you.”

“My people I trust. Your bride”—she clucks her tongue—“not so much.”

“You’ve done a great deal of work to hurt a man you claim to want back.”

“I do want you back. The work is how I love. You know this about me.” She leans in, and the cream silk drifts apart, her ample cleavage on full display. “I know you, Lupo. Every version. That man does not marry a soft American oncologist in three weeks. I don’t know what you’re playing at with her, but it stops now.”

Is the viper upset? Good.

I shrug. “People change, Allegra. You used to pretend to be decent.”

“You don’t, Lupo. You are you to the bitter end. You and I, we were something together. We both know it. We ruled Italy with an iron fist, and we can do it again.”

“I have no interest in such things. Haven’t for a long time. So what else do you bring to this negotiation?”

Her nostrils flare, and oddly, it does nothing for me. Pissing Allegra off used to be my favorite game with her. Now, I’m angry that she’s brought Veda into this, but that’s it. I am not turned on even a little bit.

“Either you’ve had a stroke, or the doctor is something other than a wife. Both are problems I can solve for you. Come back to me. You know you want to. It is the way our story ends.”

I set my napkin down and stand, lunch untouched, which she’ll read correctly. “Send any real offers you have to my lawyers. And a word of counsel, for old times. Stop throwing yourself at me. It’s unbecoming.”

She watches me stand. “You dare speak to me like this?”

“Remind your brother of the math, Allegra. Matteo’s product might be in my crates, but his name is on it too. If I go down, so does your family. Come to me with a real offer, or we both go up in flames.” With that, I jog down the stairs from her terrace, because I am over her bullshit.

The drive back is an hour of Como turning to Milan turning to my own hills, and I spend it in cold assessment. Allegra can’t prove the marriage false yet. With enough time, she will.

That lie needs a spine before she breaks it over her knee.

The house is loud with the ordinary when I get back. Veda is walking Sarah through some simple piece of music on the piano. Ma is reading a book in the conservatory, silently watching them instead of her pages. Nick is in the study when I find him. I explain the lunch. “… there’s nothing to find, which is the problem.”

“So we give her something to find.”

“Build it. Backdate a license through the courthouse contact, a small announcement in the right week’s paper, all the things that make it ring true. Make it bulletproof, make it boring, make it old by tomorrow.”

Nick doesn’t reach for a pen. He sits with his arms crossed and gives me the flat look he saves for annoying me. “That’s a lot of forgery to protect a woman who was supposed to be gone by now.”

Calendars annoy me. “What of it?”

“You just walked out on the only offer that ends this war without a shot, because the offer was her.”

“Because I will not be blackmailed into Allegra’s bed.”

“That’s not why, and we both know it.” He uncrosses his arms. “I’ll build your paper trail, Lupo. But this is getting out of hand. There’s a simple answer on the table, and you won’t even consider it⁠—”

“Allegra Brancati does not get me in exchange for the life my family and I have built! Fuck that! What the fuck, Nick⁠—”

“Genius, you could marry Veda for real.”

I’m mid-stream when what he said clicks. “I—what?”

“Same paperwork, fewer lies, basically. Simpler. Cleaner. And when Allegra finds the paperwork, she’ll be enraged, which is always good for a laugh.” Then he leaves before I can answer, which is how he wins arguments, and I hate him pulling that shit.