Today, however, is when we start putting the plan into action.
Vito’s still up and pacing, walking back and forth. Nico would have sat and listened; Vito needs motion to hear you.
Giovanni follows my look and gives me a small nod I don’t have to translate. I know what it cost him to hold all the pieces together while I was gone. I know what it bought me.
“Tonight,” Giovanni says. “We bring the rest of the family in and decide who else. We keep it as tight as possible.”
“I can talk to—” Vito starts.
“No one,” Giovanni cuts in. “You will talk to no one. You just be here tonight. And keep your mouth shut. No victory laps before we’ve won.”
Vito breathes out hard, nods. “Fine.”
He wants action so hard it’s written across his shoulders. I know the feeling. The waiting carves you out from the inside. But waiting is what you do if you want to be alive to enjoy the result of your patience.
Giovanni taps the folder on his knee and stands. “I’ll start making calls.”
Vito pivots toward the slider, impatience tempered down to a simmer. He stops long enough to look at me. “We’re close,” he says, like he needs me to know he can see the finish line.
“Won’t mean anything if we can’t finish,” I answer.
“I know, Papá,” he says. “I know how much this means to you.”
“To all of us,” I correct.
For a brief flash, I see disagreement in his eyes. Just for a moment, then it’s gone.
He nods. “I’m going to head out. See you tonight, huh?” he says, stepping back.
“Tonight,” I say.
The glass closes. The silence returns. I rub my thumb across the edge of my cup and find I don’t remember drinking what was in it.
Five weeks.
I could pick up the phone. I don’t. Not because they’re likely tracking my calls; I can get around that. But because calling heragain would be a mistake. For her, for me. She doesn’t need me making this harder for her. She doesn’t need me at all.
But I want to know if she’s eating. I want to hear her make that little sound when she tastes something she likes. The one I heard over the phone when I was walking her through cacio e pepe.
I want to know if she’s sleepwalking through her days like I am, drinking coffee and pretending her whole life hasn’t changed.
If I wanted to, I could know where she is every minute of every day. Nico is still keeping an eye on her after all, plus the public calendars, public buildings.
I don’t look. I don’t ask. It would be too easy to fall into such habits.
Our people say the box won’t notice when I leave. I trust that they’re right.
I could go to her again. One more time. One more night.
Five weeks without seeing her, hearing her, touching her. All contact had gone through Roberto, and that’s the way it should be.
Another night would be a mistake. Roberto says the first night was a mistake.
He’s wrong.
The night in her bed was not a mistake. It was not a test. It was a choice. If I let myself think about it, I can taste her skin on my tongue and feel the way she went soft and then uncoiled under my touch. I think about her hair undone and the small sound she makes when I find the right spot, the right pressure.
Has she thought about me at all?
