The Fernandez dining table was a ten-foot-long slab of polished Italian marble, cold and unforgiving.
Morning light hit it like a spotlight, showing every crumb, every smudge of jam, every sign of the war about to break out.
Julian (20): Slouched in his chair, one earbud in, absently pushing scrambled eggs around his plate with a fork. His free leg bounced with restless energy.
Timothy (13): Had his phone propped against the juice carton, watching a gameplay walkthrough with intense concentration, shoveling cereal into his mouth without looking.
Enzo (10): Fidgeting. He was bored and feeling invisible. He'd already tried to tell Leo about a new game, but got a absent-minded "Mmm-hmm" in return. The injustice simmered.
Leo (23): Sat rigid, his tablet propped before him. His brow was furrowed not in anger, but in deep, frustrated concentration.
"The data from the Queens shipment doesn't align with the dockmaster's log. The margin of error is statistically impossible. Someone's skimming." He muttered numbers under his breath, a nervous tic.
In the open space by the French doors, Tia Rosa moved through a sun salutation.
She wore a vibrant purple yoga set, her focus absolute as the soulful songs of Alejandro Fernández's "Tantita Pena" filled the room.
"¡Enfócate en la respiración, familia!" she instructed serenely, flowing into a warrior pose. "Focus on the breath! Let the stress go! Ughhh!"
It was the perfect, chaotic stage.
The first spark was a single, buttery corn kernel, flicked with surprising accuracy from Enzo's fork. It hit Julian squarely on the cheekbone.
Julian froze. He slowly wiped his face, his eyes darkening. "Don't."
Enzo's grin was all teeth. "Oops."
The retaliation was swift. A glob of strawberry jam, scooped from a jar with a finger, sailed across the table and smeared across Enzo's t-shirt.
"Hey!"
That's when the ceasefire broke. A piece of toast became a frisbee. A handful of grapes became scatter shot.
A spoonful of Timothy's cereal milk landed with a splash right on his phone screen.
"Mom, Enzo's—" Timothy started, then cut himself off, the old habit dying hard. His face tightened. He didn't look up, but his hand closed around a handful of cereal.
"Hey! Traitor!" Julian yelled, wiping Fruit Loops from his chin.
"You started it!" Timothy retorted, already loading another handful.
Leo saw a syrup-coated waffle flying towards his head. His reaction was not one of anger, but of pure, calculated panic.
He yelped, a short, undignified sound, and dove under the table, clutching his tablet to his chest.
"F**king carbohydrates!" he hissed from the floor, his voice tight with a mixture of terror and pure outrage.
The door from the kitchen swung open. Riven walked in, dressed in a gray tank top and sweatpants, his hair damp from a shower.
He moved with the heavy, stride of a man who had already been up for hours doing things no one asked about.
He made a beeline for the blender on the counter, where his chalky, post-workout protein shake waited.
His tired brain registered the noise as background static.
All he wanted was the shake.
He poured it, the glugging sound loud in his ears.
Enzo, cackling now, grab a whole, unfrosted cupcake from a cooling tray.
"INCOMING!"
Enzo launched it. It was a wild throw, high and wide. Julian ducked.
Time seemed to slow. The cupcake tumbled end over end through the air, a dark brown missile against the morning sun.
Riven turned, the blender lid in his hand, just in time for the cupcake to connect with a soft, definitive THUMP right in the center of his chest.
A shower of crumbs exploded outwards.
A piece of chocolate cake clung to the fabric before slowly sliding down, leaving a greasy, brown smear.
Silence.
The only sound was Tia Rosa 's grunting and low grumbles about her old and stiff body. Riven looked down.
He stared at the ruin of his clean shirt. He slowly placed the blender lid on the counter. The simple, deliberate action was more terrifying than any shout.
His jaw tightened.
A muscle in his cheek twitched. His gaze, cold and flat, swept from a suddenly-pale Enzo to a defensive-looking Julian.
He didn't say a word.
He walked to the sideboard, where a gorgeous, freshly iced vanilla layer cake—Tia Rosa's masterpiece for a church bake sale later—sat cooling. He picked up the entire cake plate.
"Riven, don't you dare—" Leo's voice, muffled from under the table.
He didn't throw it at a person. He launched it, plate and all, straight up at the vaulted ceiling.
WHUMP.
It was a spectacular, horrifying, beautiful explosion. The ceramic plate shattered. The cake exploded.
A blizzard of vanilla sponge, buttercream, and ceramic shards rained down over the entire dining room, dusting everyone and everything in a fine, sugary debris.
For a full three seconds, there was no sound but the gentle pat-pat-pat of falling cake.
Then, a sound cut through it.
Giggles.
From her high chair, Juliet was elated. Her big hazel eyes were wide like saucers, her face smeared with her own breakfast.
She clapped her sticky hands together, a joyous, unaffected laugh bubbling out of her.
"'Gain!" she chirped. "Do 'gain, Wiven!"
The door to Elijah's office opened.
He didn't speak.
He simply stood there, a stark figure in a perfectly tailored black suit, having just concluded a call about millions of dollars or a man's life—or both.
His gaze swept the room: the food-smeared wreckage, his cowering brothers, the ruined cake, Riven standing chest-heaving and covered in frosting.
His eyes were chips of flint.
Then, they landed on Juliet, the source of the happy laughter amidst the chaos.
His expression tightened. On the table near his hand was a single, clean strand of spaghetti, missed by the carnage.
He picked it up. His eyes, cold and disappointed, were on his baby sister.
With a flick of his wrist, so fast it was almost invisible, he sent the spaghetti strand flying.
It didn't go near Riven. It crossed the table and hit its true target: the very tip of Juliet's cute, button nose.
It stuck there, dangling.
Juliet's laughter cut off. She went cross-eyed, trying to look at the pasta on her nose.
She wrinkled her face, a little frown of confusion and indignation forming.
She reached up a hand, swatting the spaghetti strand away.
Then she looked right at Elijah, her hero, her protector, the man who had just flicked food at her. Her bottom lip trembled, not with sadness, but with a sense of profound, personal betrayal.
And in a loud, clear, chirpy voice that held a tiny, wounded edge, she declared:
"Boow-sh*t!"
The word "boow-sh*t" hung in the suddenly silent room.
Julian's fork froze mid-air. Timothy's game played tinny from his buried phone. Leo peered out from under the table, horrified.
As one, every head turned to stare at Riven, standing guilty and frosting-covered in the wreckage.
He looked at their faces, then at Elijah who had his eyebrow arched to the ceiling.
His voice was a strangled squeak.
"...What?"