I swallow hard, chest tight. I didn't let myself grieve him back then. I didn't have time. I was pregnant. Terrified. Corneredby men who saw my body as a strategy. I became efficient. Practical. Hard.
I became a mother.
And now? Now I see what I did today. What I was willing to do. What I will do again if I have to. I finally understand something I couldn't at eighteen. Massimo didn't make me strong.
He just saw it first.
I turn onto my side, pulling the blanket closer, eyes burning but dry. Whatever we were… whatever we might have been… it mattered. Enough that it still echoes. Enough that I survived losing him and became someone capable of walking into hell and not looking away.
Ten years ago, I loved him. Tonight, I don't know what I feel. But I know this: if he thinks I'm the same girl he left behind? He's about to be very surprised.
Hours blur. I drift in and out, caught in that strange half-place where thoughts dissolve and the body keeps score. My limbs are heavy. My heart won't slow. Every time I close my eyes, I see fire. Ovens. Hands. Amauri's face on the night he was taken, frozen in shock that I couldn't reach through.
"Mummy!"
The sound slices straight through me. I don't move. I don't open my eyes. I don't breathe. Because if this is a dream, I don't want to break it. I don't want to lose the sound of his voice, bright and alive and here. My lips curve into a soft, broken smile against my will. God, it hurts. It hurts so much it almost feels good.
"Mummy!"
Closer this time. Louder. Impatient. Exactly the way he sounds on Sunday mornings when he thinks I've slept too long. Suddenly I feel—weight. Unexpected and familiar. Small kneesdigging into my stomach, arms flinging around my neck with reckless force. I gasp. My eyes fly open. Impossible. He's here.
Amauri.
Real. Solid. Warm. His hair smells like soap and airplane and something metallic I don't want to think about. His arms are locked around me like he's afraid that if he lets go, I'll vanish.
"Amauri?" My voice breaks completely. It barely makes it past my throat.
"Mummy," he sobs into my neck, the word wet and desperate and whole. "I missed you. I missed you so much."
I wrap myself around him without thinking, pulling him closer, tighter, like I can fuse him back into my bones if I hold hard enough. My hands are everywhere—his back, his arms, his hair—counting, checking, proving. Alive. Breathing. Here.
"I've got you," I whisper over and over, my face buried in his shoulder. "I've got you. I've got you. I'm here. I'm here."
He's shaking. I realize I am too. His fingers knot in my shirt like he's afraid I'll disappear again. His tears soak into my skin, and I welcome every one of them. Let them burn. Let them hurt. This is the pain that means he's alive.
"They were scary," he hiccups. "But I knew you'd come. I knew you would."
That does it. I break. A sound tears out of me, ugly and raw and unstoppable. I rock him like I did when he was a baby, back and forth, pressing my mouth to his hair, his temple, his cheek. I don't care who sees. I don't care where we are. The world can burn down around us.
"You were so brave," I choke. "You were so brave, my love. I'm so sorry. I'm so sorry I didn't get there sooner."
He pulls back just enough to look at me, his hands framing my face the way mine used to frame his when he was small. His eyes are too old right now. Too knowing. It shatters me.
"But you came," he says simply.
"Yes," I whisper fiercely. "I will always come for you. No matter what. No matter who I have to go through. No matter what I have to become."
He nods like this makes perfect sense, then burrows back into me, curling against my chest like he used to do after nightmares when he was little.
I hold him.
I hold him like letting go would kill me.
Around us, the penthouse is silent. The world waits. But none of it matters. Not the danger. Not the blood. Not the lines I crossed to get here. All that matters is that my son is in my arms. This time, I am not letting him go.
I lift my head. He's standing a few feet away, arms folded over his chest, posture rigid, face carved into something unreadable. No triumph. No relief. No demand for recognition. Just watchfulness. Like a man guarding something he doesn't quite trust himself to touch.
Massimo.
