I look at him sharply. “Did Caterina talk to you?”
He lifts his brows. “No, she didn’t. But I’m not an idiot, and I recognize that Olivia isn’t one either. You should’ve been the one to tell her.”
“Of all people tosay that,” I mutter.
“Don’t pin that on me. Whatever you did was your decision,” Luca says, irritated. “I didn’t tell you to lie to her.”
“What happened to family above everything?”
“Family is above everything. But the woman you loveisfamily, you idiot.”
I stare at him. The word is like a punch in the gut. “That’s not—” I stop, because it is. It always has been, whether I’ve said it out loud or not.
Luca shakes his head once. “She’s here, with us, and has been for hours. If that’s not family, I don’t know what is. You want to protect her? Start by not making her your collateral lie. Fix it. Now.”
His eyes cut to the ICU doors. “If there’s anything we learn in this life, it’s that you may not have a later. Pull her aside or take her somewhere and talk to her.”
I glance at the doors, then back at Olivia across the room. My instinct is to plant my feet and stand guard. But Luca’s right—later is a story we tell ourselves until it isn’t there. I nod once. “Fine,” I say. “If Patel comes out, you call me.”
“Go,” Luca tells me.
I cross the room. Olivia feels me coming before she looks up; that sixth sense between us never left. “Walk with me?” I ask, keeping my voice low.
She studies my face for a beat, measuring risk, measuring me. Then she stands and falls in beside me. We pass the vending machines and the dim family lounge with its saggingcouches and old magazines until we reach a quiet stretch by a window that looks out over the parking lot.
I stop with my shoulder to the glass and face her. The words crowd, too many, and not enough.
“Last night was a mess,” I say first, because it’s true and small enough to start with. “I said the wrong thing at the worst time. I won’t compound it here. But I need you to know: I didn’t use you. I didn’t lie to get you. And I won’t hurt you.”
She exhales, looks past my shoulder to the lot, then back at me. “You did hurt me,” she says. “With what you wouldn’t say. With what you let me believe.”
“I know.” The words are rough. “I thought keeping you outside of it was safer. I told myself that lie, and I let it run too long. That’s on me.”
Her mouth flattens. “How could I be safer in the dark?”
I have to tell her the truth. The full truth now. “I truly believed you were safer in the dark, Olivia.” I sigh. “But it was also safer for me.”
Her brows furrow in confusion. “For you?
“When Maria died, there was no warning,” I tell her. “No long illness, no slow goodbye. We woke up one morning, and halfway through breakfast, she said something about a headache, and that was it. One minute she was there. The next, she wasn’t. It was… it broke something in me I didn’t know could break.”
My voice comes out hollow. I keep going anyway. “After the funeral, I learned what silence really sounds like. I learned what it was like to be completely alone at 3:00 in the morning. I learned how much a house echoes when there’s only one person in it. I spent months trying to control anything I could—calendars, workout times, the exact way I folded shirts—because I couldn’t control the only thing I wanted to control. I told myself I’d never feel that free fall again. Never put myself in a position where I could.”
Her face softens, just a little. I don’t let myself reach for it. “Roberto…”
“But it wasn’t only me,” I add. “You weren’t imagining it. There are parts of my life that put people in the blast radius. I thought if you didn’t know the details—if you stayed in the light we made between us—I could keep you safe and keep my heart out of the fire at the same time. I was wrong on both counts.”
She looks down, then up. “You could have told me that,” she says quietly. “Not the names. Just… that you were afraid.”
“I should have.” I nod once. “I thought if I said it, I’d make it true again. That I’d call it down on us. So I tried to keep you at a distance, at first anyway, and it didn’t work. I was trying to protect everything, and in doing so, I hurt you. I hurtus.”
For a moment, we just breathe. The window throws gray light across her cheekbones.
“Thank you for telling me,” she says at last. “It doesn’t fix it. But it’s true. I can hear that.”
Sheglances toward the ICU doors. “And right now, your brother is in there. This isn’t the time to rip the rest open.”
“But it is,” I say. “Luca’s right. Later isn’t always guaranteed, and I know that better than anyone.”
