The roast beef sat in a pool of its own cooling juices, the fat congealing into a greasy white film that caught the light from the chandelier above, a thousand crystal teardrops that had witnessed three generations of Marchetti dinners and said nothing. The meat itself had been carved an hour ago, perhaps longer, its pink interior now gone dull and gray at the edges where oxygen had done its slow work of decay. A bowl of roasted potatoes sat nearby, their skins wrinkled and collapsing inward like the faces of old men.

Trent poked at one of these potatoes with his fork, the silver tines scraping against the bone china with a high-pitched screech that made the air itself seem to wince. The sound traveled through the cavernous dining room, all dark wood paneling and ancestral portraits staring down with dead eyes, and died somewhere near the windows, where rain streaked down the glass in irregular patterns.

He glared at the empty chair at the head of the table. The chair was mahogany, older than any of them, carved with lions and grape vines by some Italian craftsman his grandfather had commissioned.

It sat empty, as it had for the past forty-five minutes, mocking them with its vacancy.

Then Trent's gaze shifted to Valeria standing near the sideboard. She looked miserable in that expensive way only purchased things could look miserable, like a thoroughbred horse locked in a stall too small, or a Ferrari gathering dust in a garage. Her lower lip protruded slightly, stuck out in that pout she seemed to think was cute but which mostly just made him want to slap it off her face.

"The old man's late," Trent grunted, tossing his fork onto the plate with a clatter that echoed his father's casual violence. "Again."

Ace lounged in his chair with the boneless grace of a cat that had already eaten. His legs spread wide beneath the table, and he spun a wineglass by its delicate stem, the Barolo inside catching the light, turning it the color of old blood. He studied Valeria the way one might study an insect pinned to a board, his eyes traveling over her with a lazy, predatory sort of leisure.

A smirk curled his lips, the kind of smirk that had gotten him expelled from two prep schools and one very expensive rehab facility.

"Relax, Trent," he drawled, the words coming out slow as honey, thick with something darker. "Maybe he's busy killing someone. Or fucking someone." He paused, took a slow sip of wine, his eyes never leaving her.

"Either way, we wait." The wine left a dark stain on his lower lip. He licked it away.

"Besides," Ace continued, tilting his head like a bird examining a particularly interesting worm, "look at her. All dressed up and nowhere to go. She looks like she needs a good dicking to wipe that pout off her face." He set the wineglass down with exaggerated care. "Maybe I'll help her after dinner. Community service and all that."

Vivian sighed, loud, theatrical, the kind of sigh that demanded an audience and would throw a tantrum if denied one. She picked at her manicure, examining a cuticle with the intensity other people reserved for reading contracts or defusing bombs. Her nails were painted the color of arterial spray, a deep crimson that probably cost more per bottle than most people made in a day.

"I'm starving," she announced to no one in particular, to everyone in general. "If I get faint, it's his fault. And I'm not eating this dry garbage anyway. It's gross."

Rhys said nothing. He never said much. He sat perfectly still, staring at the wall with the thousand-yard stare of a soldier or a saint, his plate empty before him like an accusation. His hands rested on his thighs. If you watched closely, you could see his fingers twitch every seven seconds. Exactly seven. He'd been counting something in his head for the past twenty minutes.

The heavy double doors swung open.

The sound was like a thunderclap in the tense quiet. Like a judge's gavel. Like the cocking of a gun.

Lorenzo strode in, and the room seemed to rearrange itself around him—the air molecules moving aside, the light bending slightly, gravity itself making an exception. He brought with him the scent of the outside world: damp earth from the grounds, expensive tobacco from his cigar, rain from the sky that had been threatening all evening and had finally made good on its promise.

He looked like he owned the air in the room.

He walked past the boys without a glance, without acknowledgment, as if they were furniture or portraits or any of the other expensive things that filled the house but required no particular attention. His footsteps were measured, deliberate, the sound of Italian leather on Italian marble—a rhythm that spoke of inheritance and violence in equal measure.

He stopped next to Valeria .

Stood there, looking down at her. She was small next to him—small next to everything in this house, really, but especially next to him. He seemed to draw all the light in the room toward himself, leaving her in shadow.

He reached out. His hand was large, calloused, scarred across the knuckles from fights he'd won decades ago. He gripped her chin—not gently, not cruelly, just with the casual ownership of a man handling his own property—and tilted her face up toward the light. Examined her the way a jeweler might examine a diamond, checking for anything that might have diminished since he'd last looked.

"Why the long face?" His voice was low, rough, like gravel being dragged across silk. "Food cold?"

He released her chin. His hand dropped lower, grabbed a handful of her ass through the expensive fabric of whatever dress he'd bought for her to wear.

Squeezed. Hard enough to bruise, hard enough that she'd feel it tomorrow when she sat down.

Then he released her and dropped into his chair—the chair, the one that had been empty and was now filled, the one that made the room make sense again in some fundamental way.

He looked at the congealed mess on the table. The gray meat, the wrinkled potatoes, the vegetables that had given up their structural integrity an hour ago. He offered no apology for the delay. No explanation. No acknowledgment that anyone had been waiting or that the food had suffered for his absence.

He simply snapped his fingers.

The sound was sharp. Final. A period at the end of a sentence.

"Plate," he said. "Now. And warm it up, for fuck's sake. I pay for the electricity, use it."

His eyes moved from Valeria to Trent, then to Ace. The look was brief but comprehensive, the kind of look that could strip paint off walls or make grown men remember they were still, in some fundamental way, children.

"And shut your mouths," he added. "You sound like a bunch of bickering hens."