“First is quality,” Nico says. “Glass was tight on the window. Probable suppressor. Second was sloppy—handgun, long angle, poor control. They were there for her, not to make a statement. They wanted it done.”
My jaw sets. “They failed.”
“They’ll try again,” he says, plain.
I know. I feel the knowing settle in my bones.
I lower my voice. “Vito?”
“Off the grid,” Nico says. “He took Giovanni and two men. You want me on him or on the house?”
“On the house,” I say, already pulling my phone. “Check in with him every hour.”
“Understood.” He tips his chin toward the stairs. “She okay?”
“She will be.” I start to turn, then point at Caterina. “Sit. Water.”
She rolls her eyes like she’s fifteen and does both immediately, sinking to the bench with a glass someone places in her hand.
“Nico,” I say, “touch base with Vito on Akers. Then sweep the house again. I don’t care how many times it’s been done today—we do it again.”
“On it,” he says, already moving, voice going low as he keys his mic.
I’m done waiting. I take the stairs two at a time and force myself to slow at the landing so I don’t barrel into her like a storm. The corridor is long and quiet. The door to the nursery is closed.
I knock softly, then open it and pause on the threshold.
She’s in the rocking chair we had delivered two days ago, the one Caterina found—solid, quiet, wide enough for both a mother and a baby. She’s small in it now: shoulders curled, hands tented over the swell that’s barely there, yet somehow everything. The room is bare otherwise. A notebook sits on the table where she’s been drawing boxes and writing lists. The afternoon light is unwelcome.
She looks up when she feels me there, eyes rimmed, jaw set. “I said I needed time.”
“You did,” I say, stepping in. “And I heard you.”
“Then why are you here?” She isn’t sharp; she’s sanded down.
“Because I’m not leaving you alone right now,” I answer. “You’ll have to deal with it.”
She swallows, and the angry tears finally break. Her face goes wet and furious, hands shaking. “I want to be alone.”
“I’m not leaving,” I say softly. “You’ll hate me for it. That’s fine. I can take it.”
“Why?” It’s a child’s question, but it deserves an honest answer.
“Because you were almost shot in the face thirty minutes ago,” I say. “Because the baby is inside you.” I tap my chest once. “Because you are mine and I am not going to stand in a hallway and listen to you come apart through a damn door.”
She lets out a sound that is half laugh, half anger, and everything pain. “You can’t will me better.”
“I’m not trying to.” I take a step closer, not too near. “But I won’t let you deal with this alone.”
Her eyes flash and tear at the same time. “I can’t even go to lunch,” she whispers furiously. “I can’t buy tiny clothes without a man telling me to get down on the floor.”
“I know,” I say.
“No, you don’t,” she snaps, voice pitching higher. “You always have people. You have a system. You have men. I had… I had a salad and a fish and a window and then a door spitting paint at my face and a man pulling me by the elbow. I had my hands on the ground in an alley with God knows what on it and my belly in the way and—” She breaks, breath hitching, then barrels on.“And all our things are scattered all over that damn restaurant. The little sleeper. The cardigan. The… the stupid nursing bra, Luca.” Her mouth twists. “Everything we bought. It’s all just—lying on a floor like it never mattered.”
“We’ll get them back,” I say. “Or I’ll buy the store.”
“That’s not the point,” she throws back, voice rising. “It’s not about a onesie. It’s that I can’t do a normal thing. I can’t sit in the sun at a café. I can’t be a woman who has lunch with someone she might finally get to call family and talk about crib sheets and be a person. Is this it? Is this my life? Sitting inside, head down?”
