He holds up the tracking device. "From your car. Mr. Benedetti asked us to return it to you."
I stare at the small black box, this piece of technology that's been monitoring my every movement for months. It's so mundane-looking, so innocuous. Hard to believe something so tiny has been such a massive violation of my privacy.
"He said to tell you," the man continues, "that all other surveillance will be removed this morning. From your house also. Everything gone."
I open the door fully, taking the device from his hand. It's surprisingly light.
"Why?" I ask.
The man shrugs. "He did not tell me.”
After they leave, I sit on my front steps holding the tracker, turning it over in my hands. This is what Enzo meant about honesty between us. No more surveillance, no more careful management of my reality. Just whatever truth we can build between us.
If I choose to try.
The sun is fully up now, painting the village below in golden light, and the birds are singing the way they always do.
I should stay here and prepare for Enzo's arrival, think through what I want to say to him. But the cottage feels suffocating after my sleepless night. I need air and space.
I leave the tracking device into my pocket and walk down the hillside path toward Monte Vento's main square. The village is barely waking up. Shopkeepers opening their doors, elderly men gathering at the café for morning coffee, children heading to school with backpacks bouncing against their small shoulders.
Normal life, continuing around the edges of my personal crisis.
The bakery is already open, warm light spilling from its windows and the smell of fresh bread floating into the cool morning air. Through the window, I can see Signora Ricci arranging pastries in the display case, her gray hair pinnedback with the same care she takes with everything else in her immaculate shop.
Before I can talk myself out of it, I push through the door.
"Madison!" Her face lights up with genuine warmth. "You're up early today. Coffee?"
"Please." I settle onto one of the wooden stools at her counter, inhaling the comforting smells of yeast and sugar and strong espresso.
She busies herself with the coffee machine, chattering in her mixture of Italian and English about the weather, the new batch of bread, her arthritis acting up. Normal conversation, the kind I've shared with her before.
But when she sets the cup in front of me and notices my expression, her demeanor shifts.
"Something troubles you? You want to talk about Enzo?"
I nearly drop my coffee cup. "What makes you say that?"
She laughs, a sound like wind chimes. "Child, I have eyes. You think the whole village doesn't know you two are involved?"
"I guess I thought we were being discreet."
"In a village this size? Nothing is discreet." She wipes down her already-spotless counter. "Besides, he is different with you. Happier. More like the boy he used to be."
"The boy?"
"Enzo grew up in that big villa on the hill, you know. The Benedetti family has been there for generations. Such a serious child, always watching from those windows, always alone up there with only adults."
I take a sip of coffee, processing this information. "Alone?"
"Only child. His parents, they traveled much for business. Important people, you understand? Enzo, he would stay with the housekeeper, the groundskeeper. Sometimes I would see him in the village square, just watching the other children play." Her expression grows wistful. "He wanted to join them, I think, but he was... how do you say... separate. Different world."
"That sounds lonely."
"Very lonely. But the family, they have always been protectors of this village. Enzo's grandfather, his father, now him. It's their way." She comes around the counter and sits on the stool beside me, her voice dropping to a whisper. "You know what kind of man he is now, yes? What he does?"
"I'm beginning to understand."
