She kisses my cheek with a detached smile, compliments Haley on her dress, and steps closer to my father. We go down the line. Lucian and Elaine. Carter. Sophia. Daphne. Lizzy’s not here. Holidays at boarding school, which my mother wasn’t pleased about. Tiernan will be wherever my father has asked him to be.

Fine. Yes. I hate it here.

Daphne embraces us both, then steps back to look at Haley. Her eyes get wide at the necklace. “That is gorgeous,” she says. “Did Leo make you wear that?”

Haley laughs. “Yes. He’s terrible like that.”

My sister’s hand rises to the collar of her dress, but she catches herself and puts it back down. Haley steps in closer to talk to Daphne, and not thirty seconds later, the receiving line stops being a line. That part of the evening is finished. Some loud-voiced man comes to talk to my father. I hear the words “beautiful family,” which is quite enough.

Daphne puts her arm through mine and tugs me closer, but I’m looking for Eva.

Lucian pushes his way into the circle, Elaine at his side, and wraps his hand over my shoulder to shake me. “What took you so long? We’ve all been having such a good time.”

“You’re the one who got him drunk, aren’t you?”

“He started it. I might have encouraged a few more. You’re welcome.”

“If that’s the best you can do for a Christmas gift—”

“Elaine and I were here before he reached this level of intoxication. At least now he’s drunk enough to keep his comments short.”

Elaine laughs. “It’s not the worst thing anyone’s ever said about me.”

It’s my turn to stare at Lucian. “And you just—what? Handed him another drink?”

“Murder isn’t nice at Christmas,” my brother says, and it is a joke, because Lucian Morelli has never once cared about being nice. He scans the room around us, a gleam in his eye. Out of everything, Lucian loves people-watching the most. This sometimes extends to people-hurting or people-killing, but at its core, he wants to know what makes people laugh or cry or scream. “Time to make the rounds. Unless I’m needed here.”

He looks at me when he says this, and it takes much longer than it should to realize that he’s stopped joking. We’ve had some discussions in the recent past about our respective roles in the family. Mine has primarily been keeping everyone alive as much as they’ll let me. His has been fucking off to God knows where. The suggestion that he might stay here if I asked him is unexpected proof that he meant what he said about sharing the work.

“It’s fine. Go.”