“Your best dish yet,” I say, and walk over, tugging off the jacket of my suit before I even think about it. I fold it once and set it over a low shelf. I scrub my hands at the prep sink because Bianca will toss me with a smile if I dare touch her child with hands that haven’t seen soap in the last thirty seconds.
When I turn back, Gio is already offering Stephano without asking. He knows me. I take the baby, and the world narrows to those big eyes and toothless grin. He’s heavier than last week. His head is warm under my palm. His hair is a dark whorl, stubborn and soft under my fingers. He looks up at me and does that newborn stare that feels like judgment.
“Hey,ragazzo,” I say, lowering my voice. “You working the line today or just inspecting?”
He blinks and lifts a fist toward me. I adjust the baby in the crook of my arm and take his little fist, shaking it with my fingers lightly.
“Inspector Stephano,” Bianca says, stepping around me to check a pan, then her son, then me again. “You'd better pass him, Roberto. He’s intense.”
“He’s a Conti,” I say. “He can’t help it.”
Stephano’s mouth twists in a slow smile, then settles in a serious little line that looks exactly like Gio’s.
I press my lips to his head and take in his scent. He smells like clean laundry and that warm, milky sweetness that puts a hand right around my heart and squeezes. I’ve never liked that feeling, and I’ve always loved it. I want to hold it tight and throw it as far away from me as possible. I envy the kind of life that doesn’t know loss yet.
“Hungry?” I ask him. He answers by staring at my tie. I tuck the silk a little deeper between buttons. He doesn’t need fiber.
“Here,” Bianca says, sliding a tiny spoon up to me. “Don’t feed him, feed yourself. Tell me if the lemon’s strong enough once it cools.”
I lean in, still holding the baby, and take the spoon. The broth hits my tongue, and my mouth brightens with the taste. Silky, lemony, a little something spicy beneath it.
“Perfect,” I say.
“Liar,” she says lightly, already reaching for the wedge of lemon.
“No more than two drops,” I say. “Then it’ll be perfect.”
Smiling, she squeezes the lemon lightly into the broth.
Gio watches us with that look he gets around family. Loving, a little dreamy, satisfied. Well, since meeting Bianca anyway.
Before that, he was never very expressive, choosing to keep things to himself. It was only meeting her and going through the fear of almost losing her to a rival family that opened him up.
“How’s he sleeping?” I ask because it’s what you ask new parents.
“Fits and bursts,” Gio says. “But he gives us three solid hours if we sacrifice to the appropriate gods.”
I lift a brow. “And those gods would be?”
“The gods of White Noise,” Gio says. “The gods of Swaddle, the saints of pacifier, and, when that fails, the goddess of taking a drive down the beach at 2:00 a.m. while singing old songs.”
Bianca gives him the soft smile meant for the private world the two of them live in. She trusts him. It’s still new enough that I enjoy watching her show it.
Stephano lets out a sigh that’s too big for his body and rests a hand on my shirt. He kicks once, strong, then settles again. His lashes are dark like his mother’s. His mouth isfirm like his father’s. The mix sits easy on him. If the world is fair, it always will.
“You’re good with him,” Gio says.
“I like good bosses,” I say, smoothing the curve of a tiny shoulder through the cotton onesie. “He’s the best one I’ve had.”
“You’re ridiculous,” Bianca says, but it’s fond, and she takes a second to look like she’s going to cry as she watches her son before she tamps it down.
“I brought you actual work,” I say, nodding toward the folder on the low shelf under my jacket. “Nothing heavy. You sign, I countersign, I file, Caterina updates a spreadsheet. It’s the last bow on you being back in the building.”
Bianca wipes her hands and reaches for the folder with a nod.
Bianca flips the folder open on a clean corner of the prep table, scans the flags I’ve marked, and signs with quick, decisive strokes. She doesn’t posture or pretend to read every clause; she trusts me to have done the boring part and to tell her if something bites.
“You know you don’t have to rush back,” Gio says, knowing full well there’s no point in saying it.
