My brother and I exchange a glance while the soldiers look on as if unseeing, and I wonder if this reprieve, this glimpse of the other, stronger side of her, will last. I have a feeling I know the answer and find myself wanting to be wrong for her sake. Because seeing her as she was, hearing what she said last night, how she didn’t know why she was like she is, I don’t want that for her. I don’t want to see her looking so broken, so damaged anymore. It’s enough. I want to fix her.

But I also know this isn’t over. She hasn’t hit rock bottom yet. And I’m afraid this reading of the will and our meeting with Lucien Russo may pale in comparison to what we learn when we meet with Tilbury.

I wonder if Bastian is thinking the same things because what he warned would happen has happened. My priorities have shifted. My endgame may no longer be the same as his. I wonder what hers is. No, I don’t have to wonder. She wants out. She wants to take Emma and walk away. And I promised her I’d let her go, but as the elevator dings and the doors slide open, I’m not sure I can do that anymore. I don’t want to.

My first face-to-face meeting with Lucien Russo is not what I expect it to be. I’d imagined I’d be calm. Gleeful, even. Because today brings us another step closer to his end. To justice being served, the scales leveled.

But when Lucien faces his sister as we walk toward him, Bastian and I both move closer to her, standing just a little ahead of her. Enough to protect her from an attack. Not that he would attack here and now, not so openly.

My uncle’s words come to mind. That it was Lucien who arranged what happened to her in Naples. Could he have? Or was Sonny fucking with us?

I don’t take my eyes off Lucien as he takes her in. He looks like his father but sloppy. Where Geno Russo took care to always look impeccable, Lucien doesn’t quite have that same crispness, that natural sense of elegance. He has money, that’s easy to see, but there’s something ugly and base about him. It’s in his eyes—in the flatness, the emptiness of them.

As we approach the room with the glass walls and doors, we’re met with one of Geno Russo’s lawyers, John Brady. Bruno shakes hands with him, and I guess he’s one of the lawyers he’s been in contact with to arrange things. We’re introduced to the other two. Vittoria shakes their hands. My brother and I merely nod in acknowledgment as Lucien shifts his gaze from his sister to us.