Page 150 of Dante
"But you didn't care then."
Nico's expression doesn't change.
That's the thing about Nico. He doesn't apologize for being cautious. He doesn't apologize for seeing danger where others see innocence. In his mind, suspicion has kept this family alive. Suspicion has stopped bullets before they were fired.
But suspicion also almost cost us Sophia.
Almost cost Lorenzo everything.
Life has a terrible sense of humor.
The man who trusted no one ended up married to a woman who saw through every wall he built. Kristen walked into his life with a daughter and an abusive ex-husband, and Nico—the man who calculated every risk, who never let anyone close—fell so hard he forgot how to count.
I catch his eye.
Give him a look.
Not now.
She's fragile.
Don't push.
Nico holds my gaze for a beat.
Two.
Then he turns back around.
Faces forward.
Says nothing else.
The SUV takes another turn.
Marina is still staring at the back of Nico's head.
"He's different now," I say quietly. "Kristen changed him."
"Kristen." Marina's brow furrows. "The woman who helped me. On the phone. When you were bleeding out."
"Yes."
"She's married to him?"
"Yes."
Marina processes this.
I can see her trying to reconcile the man who pointed a gun at Sophia with the man whose wife talked her through keeping me alive.
"How?" she asks.
"How what?"
"How does someone like her end up with someone like him?"
I think about Kristen.
