MIA POV
She wakes up with the dinner still running behind her eyes.
Not the whole thing. Specific moments, cut clean from the rest, the way her mind always works it keeps what matters and drops the rest and by morning the table and the candles and the crystal are gone and what remains is just the pieces she has not finished processing yet.
Marco's face when he said very sudden.
The lieutenant's laugh.
Dante going still.
You held up well.
She sits up. She puts her feet on the floor. She runs it from the beginning.
Marco first. Always Marco first now because Marco is the most dangerous thing at that table and she cannot afford to put him anywhere else in the order.
She replays the condolences. The softness in his voice. The warmth in his expression. She takes it apart the way she takes everything apart not the surface, the surface is constructed, the surface is the performance, she looks underneath.
Underneath he was checking her.
