“Yeah?”
“I’m proud of you.”
The words hit somewhere I didn’t know was starving. “Ti voglio bene, Ale.”I love you.
“Anch’io.”Me too. “Now go sign your papers like a respectable criminal.”
We hang up. I drop the screen and the driver pretends he hasn’t heard a thing. I sure as hell hope he hasn’t. The fewer people who know about Livia the better. I don’t care how trusted they may be.
The town tightens around us, the narrow streets, and a storefront with a bell that probably rings too loud. The notary’s office sits above a pharmacy, blinds crooked with a plaque that saysMrs. McVeigh, Commissioner for Oaths. I roll my shoulders, breathe, and think about a girl in wellies who wants twenty stories and apapàwho can fix things.
“Fifteen minutes,” the driver says, driving up to the curb. “I’ll be right here.”
“Make it thirty.” I open the door to the wet morning then glance back. “I might buy some biscuits.”
The streets are quiet, rain pattering across the car’s windshield on our ride back. The appointment with the notary took longer than expected, but at least it’s done. Now hopefully,Papàwill get off my back for a few more weeks until I can convince Cat to come back to Manhattan with me. I balance a paper sack of biscuits on my knees, the blue-wrapper kind Livia demolishes two at a time, and let the rainy fields unspool into glass and skyline in my head.
I see a narrow Manhattan kitchen that smells like coffee and Sunday sauce, Cat barefoot in one of my shirts, and Livia on a stool dusted in flour, declaring herself Minister of BiscuitDistribution. I see my father pretending not to cry when she calls himNonno, Serena teaching her how to side-eye with precision and Antonio smuggling contrabandgelato. Then there’s Alessia and Bella arguing about which bow goes with yellow wellies, Raf showing her how to double-knot laces like a sailor and little Rex playing with her on a swing set. Ale and I sit on a rooftop with lemon trees in ugly pots that somehow still grow, swearing we’ll do better than what raised us.
There’s a walk to the park where pigeons lose their minds over crumbs. School drop-offs with too-big backpacks and notes in lunch boxes. A library card with Livia printed crooked. A key on Cat’s chain that opens our door and not a single one I’d ever need for a back room again.
I imagine danger knocking and finding nothing but cameras, cousins, and a city that belongs to us the way a promise belongs to a man who finally learned how to keep it.
The hedges close over the lane to Noreen’s, and a black van whizzes past us. A whisper of unease trickles down my spine, but I shove it down. Those instincts I grew up with will take a long time to bury. Still, I reach for my phone and shoot Cat a quick message.
Me: Almost home.
Then, I palm the biscuits, picture Livia’s grin, and think: almost there. Almost home.
CHAPTER 49
BAIT
Caitríona – One Hour Earlier
Noreen’s kitchen smells like toast, wet wool and the cinnamon Livia decided every pancake needs for sparkle. She stands on a chair in her yellow wellies because wellies are for all occasions. Her tongue is out in concentration as she tries to flip a pancake the size of her face. Noreen guards the kettle like a general while I whisk the eggs. Leo hovers at the back door, refusing tea, refusing a chair, refusing to be anything but a wall between us and the monsters outside.
“Last chance, soldier,” Noreen tells him, setting a mug within arm’s reach. “Tea makes bullets change their minds.”
Leo almost smiles. “Bulletproof is above my pay grade.”
“What’s bulletproof?” Livia asks.
Noreen and I exchange a wary glance, then I curl a lock of copper around my finger and kiss her freckled nose. “Nothing you ever have to worry about,a stór.”
She shrugs, sprinkling a heap of cinnamon over the pancakes. “When isPapàcoming home?”
“Soon.” I glance at the clock on the wall and count the seconds. He’s only been gone for a little over an hour and already it feels like a lifetime.
“Let’s make a few more pancakes, Liv,” Noreen cuts in. “I’m sure yourpapàwill be ravenous when he returns.” She cuts a look in my direction. “It sounded like he was up all night doing heavy lifting.”
Heat swarms my cheeks. Shite, were we that loud?
The goats bleat, and the radio murmurs low in the background. For half a heartbeat, I believe this easy moment might hold.
Then a sound rips the morning in half.
Crack. Crack. Crack.
