I look up and find him already watching me. For a heartbeat, neither of us says anything. The world narrows to the rustle of paper, the soft hum of the lamp, the careful space between us.
Then he pulls back.
The distance returns all at once—precise, decisive, like a line redrawn. He closes the book with more care than necessary and straightens, his voice low but steady. “It’s late,” he says. “You should rest.”
Before I can answer, he steps away from the table.
“Goodnight, Rose.”
I sit there for a few seconds after he’s gone, the ghost of his nearness still clinging to the air, the page under my hand warm where his fingers had been.
10
MATTEO
Ishouldn’t have stayed.
The thought follows me out of the library and down the hall. I told myself I was checking on her. Making sure she was settled. Making sure she was safe. Somewhere along the way, that line blurred, and I let it.
That was a mistake.
She’s not a woman I should touch, or want, or even think about the way I do. She’s untouched by the things that define my world, by the compromises and the blood and the quiet decisions that rot you from the inside out. I’m a Don. I’ve earned what I am, and I’ve paid for it. She hasn’t. Dragging her into that darkness would be a kind of theft.
I want to protect her. Not taint her.
She feels clean in a way I stopped being a long time ago. Light, where I am weight. If she ever learns what I actually do, what my name really means when people whisper it, I don’t know what she’ll see when she looks at me again.
The thought sits wrong in my chest.
Without realizing it, my steps take me down the familiar corridor, past the rooms that have been empty for years. I slow when I reach the door at the end.
The west wing.
It’s late. Too late for social visits.
But I go in anyway.
I tell myself I’m just checking. Habit. Responsibility.
The lie barely registers anymore as I open the door and step inside.
The lights are low, but not off.
He’s awake.
An old man sits in his chair by the window, a book open in his hands, glasses low on his nose. The lamp beside him casts soft light over silver hair and lines carved deep by time and pain. He looks up when I enter, eyes still sharp despite everything.
“Son,” Moreno says mildly. “You’re up late." He glances at the clock, then back at me. “Or very early.”
That drags a smile out of me. "Papà."
I pull a chair closer and sit beside his bed, careful not to disturb the tubing.
“How are you doing tonight?” I ask quietly.
He considers it, the way he always does. “Some days are better than others,” he says. “Tonight is,” he pauses again, then finally mouths, “tolerable.”
My gaze drifts to the machine beside him, the steady rhythm of assisted breaths doing work his body no longer can. Ever since the shooting, since he lost a lung and the use of both legs, nothing comes easily to him anymore. He needs help with everything now. Even breathing.
