I’d lost my mind, surely.

I glanced at Gia sitting beside me, her face closed off, both of us silent. A thick air of anxiety hung between and all around us, both of us tense for what would come. How would I be treated? How much did people know? And why in hell did I give a fuck? Why in hell was I going anyway?

The knowledge of Franco’s death settled like a heavy black cloak around me, inside me, swallowing me up. I didn’t know what I should feel. Hatred? Anger? But all I felt was regret. And a sense of loss like I’d never experienced before.

It was over.

He was dead.

There was no going back. No making amends. No saying sorry.

Salvatore told me he’d asked about me. Had he truly regretted what had happened? Had he regretted telling me like that? All those years, I’d thought he’d loved me. I had. It was maybe stupid, but I had believed it. Losing that love, I realized now, it had broken a part of me.

And through that break seeped a darkness that had oozed into my soul. Made me into a man I no longer recognized. But then I found Gia, bruised and afraid, huddled in a corner of that decrepit room. The moment she set her burning gaze on me, she saw me. She saw right through me. All the broken pieces of me. And now that she knew, now that I’d told her my story—the first time I’d ever done that—it was like those pieces slowly fused together again, even if it was inside out and backward, scar tissue barely covering too many razor-sharp edges.

I was no longer the man I had once been.

But I was stronger. I may be harder. I may be darker, but I was stronger. And I would never be fooled again. I would never be weak again.

Nerves twisted my gut as we neared the house in the Adirondacks. His favorite place. The last time I was here had been to celebrate his birthday.

I turned to Gia. “You do as I say. Every word, understand? You do not leave my side, and you do exactly as I say.”

“You told me that already, and I promised I would.”

Gia’s gaze bounced from me to the road and back. And even as she acted tough as nails, the shadows beneath her eyes and the fact she’d refused to eat told of her anxiety.

“What about the auction?” she asked.

I grinned. That piece did truly give me joy. “I took care of it.”

She tilted her head to the side, waiting for more.

“Watch them all at the funeral tomorrow. We’ll see just who is involved.”

I wouldn’t say more yet.