“I’m meeting Ella for coffee,” Lucia says lightly, as though she hasn’t just tossed a grenade into the space between us.
“No,” I reply immediately.
She turns to face me, water streaming down her face, eyes sharp. “That wasn’t a question.”
“You’re not going anywhere without me,” I say. “Especially not now.”
“Especially now is exactly why I’m going,” she fires back. “I’m not going to start living like a ghost because men are playing games with knives.”
I step closer, crowding her space, irritation flaring. “Bellandi has gone quiet. La Fratellanza has gone quiet. That is not peace,cara. That is preparation.”
She lifts her chin. “Then I’ll take my guards.”
“They stick to you like glue,” I warn.
She smiles, wicked and soft all at once. “Like glue? Are you sure you want them that close?”
The image that conjures does not help my mood.
“Fine. Not that much like glue,” I snap. “Some of these men have been with me since I was a boy. It would be a shame to kill them for touching my wife.”
She laughs, then sobers, palms flattening against my chest. “I’ll be careful,” she says quietly. “I promise.”
I study her for a long moment, weighing risk against inevitability, knowing I’m losing this argument even as I calculate how to control the damage.
“Dinner,” I say finally. “You’ll meet me after. Let me feed you.”
She nods.
We dress in silence, broken only by the sound of zips and cufflinks, the ordinary rituals of a life that is anything but. At the door, I pull her back for one last kiss, hard enough to remind us both what we’re resisting. And what we’re facing.
She walks towards her car. I’m escorted to mine.
And as we separate, a familiar unease settles in my chest, not fear, exactly, but the sharp awareness that some days begin too quietly.
And those are always the days that promise carnage and spilled blood.
Lucia
The café Ellachooses is small, sunlit, and stubbornly ordinary.
It sits on a forgotten corner of New York and smells like roasted coffee and warm bread, with scratched wooden tables and a chalkboard menu written by someone whose handwriting suggests optimism rather than profit margins.
It’s the kind of place where people argue about oat milk versus whole and no one carries a gun under their jacket.
Which is exactly why I relax the moment I step inside.
Ella’s already there, perched on a stool by the window, fingers wrapped around a mug like she’s anchoring herself to the day.
She looks up, spots me, and her face breaks into a smile so open and unguarded that something in my chest eases despite my better judgement.
“Hi,” she says, standing too quickly and nearly knocking her chair over. “You made it.”
“I did,” I reply, surprised to realise how much I wanted to. “Sorry I’m late. Traffic.”
She laughs. “I live here. Traffic is a lifestyle choice.”
We order coffee, strong, no nonsense, and pastries we don’t need but absolutely deserve. For a few blessed minutes, the world narrows to steam curling from mugs and the hum of conversation around us, and I almost forget to look for exits.
