I stand and turn to find Angelica watching me from the doorway.
Her eyes are on the bruises forming on my knuckles and the cut above my eyebrow.
She doesn't say anything, but her expression speaks volumes.
She walks over and kneels down beside me then pulls a tissue from her pocket to dab at the cut.
Her touch is gentle but firm.
She works quickly to clean away the blood before Sofia notices.
"What happened?" she asks quietly.
"A raid. It didn't go as planned."
"Are you hurt anywhere else?"
"Just bruises. Nothing serious." Shame creeps in like I'm speaking to my mother as a naughty child who broke something precious of hers.
She finishes cleaning the cut and sits back on her heels.
We're close enough that I can see the worry in her eyes, the fear that something worse could've happened.
"You need to be more careful," she says.
"I'm always careful."
"That's not what this looks like." She gestures to my face and arms. "This looks like you're taking unnecessary risks." Having this hushed conversation so close to Sofia feels risky, but Angelica doesn't seem to care.
She's having her crack at me as she well should.
I have a family now and she's right for calling out my risk taking.
"There's no such thing as a safe risk in my line of work."
She's quiet for a moment, then she asks, "Do you want her to have to spend Christmas alone?" Her brow furrows as she narrows her eyes at me.
The question surprises me. "What?"
"If you get yourself killed, your daughter will end up like you." Her use of that term clashes with the way she's spoken to me previously, but her point lands hard.
I think back to those years.
My father was always working.
My mother tried to create holiday traditions, but they felt hollow without my father's presence.
After she and my brother died, the holidays stopped meaning anything at all.
She stands, and I stand with her.
There’s so much conflict on her face, fear warring with her attempt to stay calm.
She's so right.
Sofia needs me to be here for her, not just show up in a body bag one morning.
"Please," she whispers. "Please just let us walk away when this is over. Let us go back to Naples and live our lives. You can visit Sofia. You can be part of her life. But don't make us stay here."
