He briefly glanced my way before he headed out with the parcel.

“I’m going to check on the kids,” I said. Even if I longed to be held by Dante, I could tell he needed a few moments to himself. He nodded, already turning his back to me.

I walked out. The house was eerily quiet now. Danilo had stopped raging behind the closed door of Pietro’s office and somehow the quiet bothered me more. I quickly moved upstairs. Muffled sobs came from down the corridor where Ines’ and Pietro’s bedroom was.

My heart clenched violently and I had to lean against the wall to compose myself before I dared to step into Sofia’s room.

Anna and Sofia sat cross-legged on the bed, their faces confused and fearful. They looked at me for answers, and for a moment I knew how Dante felt when all of his men always turned to him for solutions.

My face felt stiff. I couldn’t smile, not even to console these girls. Leonas sat on the sofa in the corner, playing with his Gameboy and a deep frown on his face, blond strands covering most of his eyes.

I could tell he was upset even if he pretended to be engrossed in his game.

“Mom, what’s wrong?” Anna asked.

Sofia jumped off the bed and took a step closer. “Was there… was there a piece of Fina… in… in…” Her face twisted with horror.

I quickly shook my head, even if there had been a piece of Fina, albeit only blood, inside. I wouldn’t be the one to tell Sofia anything. If Pietro or Ines decided to let her know they’d have to tell her, but I doubted they would.

I walked over to them then sank down on the bed. Sofia’s room was a dream in pink with frills and stuffed animals. So young. So innocent. It was a little girl’s safe haven in our cruel world.

Anna pressed up to me and I kissed the top of her head.

Sofia looked toward her door. “I’m going to look for Sam.” I didn’t stop her. With everything going on she’d often been at the fringes, too young to be involved but too old to require constant attention. I hoped for her sake as well that Fina would return soon.

“Let me talk to your brother for a moment, okay?” Leonas didn’t like to talk emotions in general, much less when others were around, even his sister.

Anna nodded. “Okay. I’ll grab something to eat.” I gave her a grateful smile. At almost eleven, she was already more responsible than I had been at her age. That was her father’s blood, no doubt.

Once she had left, I sat down on the plush sofa beside Leonas.

“Can you turn that off?”

He pressed the off button but didn’t look up from the screen.

“Is Dad angry with me?” he asked softly.

“He’s not angry with you. Maybe he was for a moment because of what you said. You need to think before you talk or you might hurt people, do you understand?”

He looked up, blond brows pulled together. “I guess.”

“Count to three before you say something that might upset others.”

“How do I know what upsets others?”

“Right now, if it’s something about Fina. Everyone’s really touchy.”

“Okay. Is she alive?”

I bit my lip. Seven years old and he asks me about death as if he was talking about what we’d have for dinner. “No, she’s okay.”

“I miss my friends. Anna’s got Sofia but I have no one.”

“You have me and Dad.”

Leonas made a face. “You aren’t as much fun as Rocco and Ricci.”

“Well, what would be fun?”

“Roller skating! Or riding the bike and doing stunts!”

Some of the stunts I’d caught the boys doing with their bikes had almost given me a heart attack. Not to mention that Dante would lose it if I left the house with Leonas to take a ride. “How about we do something else?”

He pouted, then his face lit up again. “The slime challenge.”

My brows rose. “Slime challenge?”

“Yes!” If it caused this much excitement for a boy of seven, it would be something I’d definitely not enjoy, especially if slime was involved, but I wanted to distract him. “All right, let’s do this slime challenge.”

Leonas’ answering grin banished some of the dark in my chest.

I sat in an armchair amidst the chaos Danilo had caused in Pietro’s office. Torn books, broken glass, overthrown shelves littered the floor. Danilo had left with his car. I doubted he was on his way back to Indianapolis. He needed time to himself. We all did.

I stared down at my shiny wingtip shoes, at my perfectly ironed dress pants, the neatly closed cuffs at my wrists. From the outside, I was the immaculate, controlled businessman, the Ice Man. I was like one of those goddamn volcanoes hidden beneath a thick layer of eternal ice. Propping my elbows up on my thighs, I lowered my face into my palms. If one of those erupted, they had the potential to destroy everything around. I felt on the verge of a dangerous outbreak.

I wanted to destroy, only not the ones around me but they would be at risk if I gave up control. Luca and Remo, those were the ones who’d feel my rage. Remo for everything he’d done to Fina, to our family. And Luca, for cooperating with the Camorra despite everything he knew of them.

“Daddy?”

My head shot up. Anna hovered in the doorway. She was dressed in a flowery summer dress, her hair up in a messy ponytail and her blue eyes wide. She was everything I wanted to protect. I didn’t say anything. Slowly she came inside, almost shyly. I wasn’t sure what Val had told her, but I doubted she’d mentioned the sheets. Anna was too young for something like that, even if Val had already explained a few things to her.

“You look sad,” she said quietly, stopping right beside me.

Sad wasn’t the right word to describe my emotions.

“I am,” I agreed anyway.

Anna wrapped her arms around my neck. I embraced her.

“It’s going to be all right. You are going to make everything okay. You always do.”

Her infallible trust in me was my incentive. I kissed her temple and held her for a while. I wasn’t sure who was comforting whom. It didn’t matter. Eventually, I pulled back. I had a call to make. “I’m sure Sofia can use some distraction. Why don’t you go find her?”

Anna nodded. She knew it was my cue that I needed to work.

She slipped out and closed the door.

Taking a deep breath to compose myself, I called Remo. I didn’t want to show him how the sheets had shaken us up.

“Dante?” he said in a tone that made me forget my resolution almost instantly.

“I got your message.”

“I know you don’t follow the Famiglia’s bloody sheets tradition, but I thought it was a nice touch.”

I’d always despised the tradition, had found it utterly distasteful when I’d been confronted with it at Famiglia weddings and even the occasional Outfit wedding of very traditional families who stuck to the old habits. But these sheets stood for something far worse than a consummated marriage. They stood for an act of violence a woman shouldn’t ever have to suffer, not in a marriage and not outside of it either. “There are rules in our world. We don’t attack children and women.”

“Funny that you say that. When your soldiers attacked my territory, they fired at my thirteen-year-old brother. You broke those fucking rules first, so stop the bullshit.”