I stay where I am, pressed flat against the closed door with both arms crossed tight over my chest, using the pressure to try and physically hold myself together. No matter what I do, I can’t stop seeing her shielding him with her own body without a second of hesitation.
I’ve seen bravery before, have watched men twice her age charge headlong into gunfire with their teeth clenched and eyes blazing, knowing full well that death was inevitable and choosing to stand and hold the line anyway.
Yet none of it comes close to watching Elena protect our son. That image has burned itself permanently into the back of my mind. Every time I blink, I see it.
Watching her be dragged toward that window nearly broke something inside my chest when I finally reached their room, her arms reaching for Luca, his screams ripping through the air, the sheer helplessness of almost arriving seconds too late and knowing that if I hadn’t, if I’d been delayed even a heartbeat longer, I would have lost them both.
I’ve known dread before.
I’ve known it very intimately.
I’ve felt the cool barrel of a gun pressed to my own temple held by my own hand the night following my brother’s funeral, when the weight of the world and my failures pressed down so hard on my shoulders, I couldn’t see another way forward. I’ve known true, unfiltered loss holding Matteo in my arms, feeling his blood soak into my clothes as I begged him to stay with me even though I knew it was useless to do so.
Those moments carved me into what I am.
But that… seeing Elena and Luca almost taken like that had been so different.
The fear I feel now isn’t singular. It’s all-consuming. When I imagine the Bellantis succeeding with ripping Elena and Luca from this house and dragging them onto that awaiting helicopter to take them to God knows where, my chest tightens until breathing feels like a punishment.
Rage comes flooding in behind it soon after. It isn’t the cold, detached fury of a Don protecting his territory from usurpers. It is something far more dangerous, feral enough that I could be convinced to burn entire cities to ash if it meant keeping them both here with me, alive and untouched.
I’ve always believed fear was a weakness. That sentiment had been beaten into me since I was a young child. Tonight, though, I realize it is also a warning, a flare shot into the sky telling me exactly where the danger lies and how close it had come to taking what is mine. Ignoring it now would be the greatest weakness of all.
When Luca finally falls asleep, the tension slowly draining from his small body until his weight settles fully into Elena’s arms, she lifts her head slowly. Her eyes find mine across the room. They’re glassy with exhaustion, rimmed red from crying. There’s something else there too, stripped bare by the terror from earlier and the love she has for our son.
It hurts to look at.
I hadn’t realized how rigidly I’d been standing against the door until my shoulders begin to ache. I roll them back a few times before peeling myself away from it to move closer.
“Is he…?” I murmur.
“He finally fell asleep,” she whispers back.
I stop beside the bed, my gaze dropping to Luca without conscious thought. I check him the way I’ve checked wounded men on battlefields and in back alleys plenty of times before this, my eyes trailing over every visible part of him while I methodically collect the data.
Breathing: steady.
Color: good.
Shaking: none.
Pain: none.
I breathe out slowly, the information easing me somewhat. Only then do my eyes lift to meet hers.
“How are you?” I ask.
The question feels absurd the moment it leaves my mouth. Almost insulting, given what she’s just endured, but I ask anyway. I need to hear her answer and hear proof that this isn’t some cruel trick of my mind, that I didn’t arrive too late and am now inventing this moment out of sheer desperation to remain sane because they really were taken before I could get to them.
She gives a small, tired shake of her head. “Alright. Just… shaken.”
The understatement nearly pulls a laugh out of me. I swallow it down instead, nodding once in response. If I let myself react honestly to the fear and the rage still trying to claw their way out of my chest, I’m not sure I’ll be able to contain them.
She shifts slightly on the bed, careful not to disturb Luca as she adjusts her hold of him so his head rests more comfortably in her lap. Even exhausted like this, she’s still completely aware of how to nurture him.
“What happened?” she asks quietly. “Do you know who did this?”
I hesitate.
