The dining room in North Caldwell glowed with a golden light, superficially soft. Crystal glasses chimed and silverware scraped porcelain plates.

Laughter rose and fell in waves around the long table where families and friends gathered.

At the far end sat Christopher Moltisanti, trying and failing to focus on the veal in front of him.

He looked sharp: a charcoal suit tailored tight across his narrow shoulders, his black shirt open at the collar while a thin gold chain glinted at his throat.

His dark hair was slicked back, a widow’s peak sharp as a blade. The famous beak of a nose cast a long shadow when he leaned toward the candlelight.

His eyes—restless in their darkness—kept drifting across the table.

To you.

He sat beside his girlfriend, Adriana La Cerva, who was animatedly describing a new band she’d discovered for the club. Adriana’s nails tapped his sleeve for emphasis.

He nodded when he was supposed to, murmured agreement when she paused. But every few seconds, his gaze slid past her shoulder.

Across the table, you listened politely to someone’s story, smiling in a way that sent flutters to his aching heart.

Chris shifted in his chair. He had come up from nothing—an orphan in everything but name, raised on stories about his father, Dickie, a legend who had been taken too soon.

The weight of that ghost rode him daily.

He’d clawed his way into favour with Tony Soprano, earning his button and respect. He had survived bullets and indictments. He had kicked heroin—at least for now.

He told himself he was destined for more: movies, recognition… anything. Just something bigger than collections and no-show jobs.

But none of that helped him now.

Because you were laughing at something someone else had said, and he felt the laugh like a personal slight.

“Chrissy, you’re so quiet tonight,” Adriana purred, leaning into him.

He blinked, forcing a smirk on his lips. “I’m listenin’, ain’t I?”

From further down the table, Tony’s heavy voice cut through the chatter. “What’s the matter with you, Chris? You look like somebody stole your car.”

A few people chuckled.

Chris straightened and rolled his shoulders. “I’m good, T. Just tired. Lotta stuff goin’ on, y’know?”

Tony grunted, satisfied enough, and returned to carving his roast.

Chris reached for his wine but stopped short, fingers hovering over the stem. He’d been careful lately: meetings, sponsors. The whole humiliating parade.

He drew his hand back and instead adjusted his cufflinks, jaw tightening.

His gaze found you again.

It wasn’t just attraction. It was the way you carried yourself—steady with self-possession, not dazzled by the suits and the jewellery and the undercurrent of menace that floated through these rooms.

You didn’t orbit him the way others did. You didn’t look at him like he was a ticket to something.

And that drove him crazy.

He leaned back, watching as someone passed you a dish. His expression softened for half a second before hardening again, like he’d caught himself.

Adriana laughed brightly at something Tony’s wife had said and squeezed Chris’s thigh under the table.

“We should have them over next week,” she pressed her lips to his cheek. “Right, baby?”

He nodded automatically, unaffected by her intimacy. “Yeah. Sure.”

His eyes flicked to you once more, slower this time. When your gaze met his across the table, he didn’t look away immediately. His mouth curved into something that wasn’t quite a smile, but a challenge.

Then Adriana shifted beside him, and the spell snapped.

Chris cleared his throat and pushed his plate away. “I’m gonna get some air,” he muttered.

Outside on the patio, the night was cool and smelled faintly of freshly-cut grass. He lit a cigarette despite promising he’d quit.

He exhaled hard, staring back through the sliding glass doors. He could see you at the table.

Chris flicked ash onto the stone and watched it scatter, feeling the familiar pull of wanting something he couldn’t have, and knowing, for once, that no amount of muscle or money or loyalty to Tony Soprano could make it his.