For a few seconds, Nico was quiet and didn't respond to Mara's question.
Mara asked again, slowly and clearly this time. "Nico? Is that all?"
"Yeah, that's all. Aside from that, we just need to keep the Regent alive. Till… till the day she delivers the Ferrante heir."
Mara looked at him, and couldn't help but clock it. He had said The Regent. Not Mara, but The Regent.
Twenty minutes ago his hand had been on her back in an empty street with no audience and no reason to perform anything.
And now he was standing in her doorway calling her by her title with a completely flat voice, and she could see exactly what had happened.
The Don had come back. The man who had briefly shown through in the garage, the one who had moved in front of her without thinking about it, had locked himself away again somewhere between the car and this room.
She understood it. She even respected it, in a cold, practical way.
But understanding it didn't stop the quiet sting of it.
