“I’m good,” he says. “Maybe another time. I’ve got lunch plans.”
“With a… a woman?” I try to make it sound lighter than I feel.
“A girl?” It comes out lighter than I feel.
His ears go a little pink. “Yeah. A woman.”
I nod like that’s normal conversation we always have. It isn’t. I don’t know her name. I don’t know where he met her, what she does, what she likes. And he doesn’t offer the information.
Eleven years can make strangers out of your own blood.
“Good,” I say. “Enjoy.”
He shifts the towel from one shoulder to the other. “I will.”
Silence settles. Not awkward, just unfamiliar.
There was a time when this room never shut up. Vito banging a cabinet door, Caterina stealing food off her brother’s plate, Lucia arguing about shoes, Nico lining toy cars in perfect rows along the grout lines like the tile was a city map. Carlotta humming and telling me to get out of her kitchen if I wasn’t going to help. All of it stacked on top of itself until the noise became the sound of home.
Now it’s just the fridge and the breeze.
“You good out there?” I nod toward the pool house because asking about the woman seems like it would be too much. “You can always move back into the main house if you like. I don’t mind,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No thanks. The pool house suits me. My own space. I like it.”
“Fair enough.”
He starts for the patio, then stops and looks back. “You really don’t hate her, huh?”
I know he’s talking about Elena.
“I don’t waste hate on those who don’t deserve it,” I say. “This isn’t mercy. It’s math. Touching her costs more than it buys. We don’t pay bad prices.”
“She won’t scare easy,” he says.
“I know.”
“You respect that.”
“I do,” I say simply.
Nico gives the smallest nod and walks out.
I sit at the desk, looking at the file Antonio left behind. Flipping it open to a picture of Elena’s face, I wonder briefly if they have any protections on her phone.
Chapter Eight
Elena
The blinds are down, the overhead light is on, and my kitchen looks like a crime scene where the only victim is common sense.
Flour dusts everything—the counter, my shirt, the floor. The pasta maker I ordered—ID pick-up, signed in triplicate, thank you very much—clamps to the counter like its life depends on it. The hand crank wobbles. I’ve tightened the screw three times. It still wobbles.
On the counter is my mother’s recipe card in her big, looping hand. “Pasta all’uovo,” it says at the top, and then a list that could be a riddle. “Farina, uova, sale, un poco d’acqua se serve.” No quantities. Under that, her notes: “Impasta finché è lisciacome il lobo dell’orecchio.” Knead until it’s as smooth as an earlobe. An earlobe? Really, Mamma?
It’s been a week of house food. Sugo four times. Eggs every morning. Chicken until the word makes my jaw lock. I ate cereal for the third time last night and stared at the bowl like it had personally offended me.
Today I decided to be brave, or stupid, or both.
