I laugh, and it surprises me, and the three of them look pleased with themselves for producing it.
These women are married to three of the scariest men I've ever seen in my life––and that is coming from the daughter of a mafia boss––and they're sitting here laughing about reading glasses and focaccia and they look, genuinely and unmistakably, loved. Not managed. Not handled. Loved. I grew up in this world, and I have never once seen that.
"Does it get easier?" I ask, and I mean for it to sound casual and it doesn't quite come out that way.
Alessia looks at me. Not with pity. With the specific understanding of someone who has been exactly where I'm sitting.
"The world gets smaller," she says. "In a good way. It stops being this enormous terrifying thing and starts being just your life." She pauses. "It takes time."
"And a very thick skin," Bianca adds.
"And the ability to ignore them completely when they're being dramatic," Isabella says.
"Which is often," Bianca says.
"Constantly," Alessia confirms.
I drink my coffee and eat Marta's good eggs and for twenty minutes I forget, almost completely, that I am a spy in my own marriage. That there is a burner phone upstairs. That the woman across from me is married to the man my father wants me to help destroy.
Almost.
The kitchen door opens and Rafael enters.
He's changed into a jacket, which on him looks less like getting dressed and more like arming himself. He takes in the kitchen, the three women, the egg situation, me in the middle of all of it, and his expression settles into neutral, which I'm learning means he's clocked everything in the room and filed it away neatly.
"Ladies," he says.
"He speaks," Bianca says. "Good morning, Rafael."
"Don't scare her," Isabella says, pointing at him with her mug. "We just got her comfortable and she's ours now, so whatever face you're about to make, don't."
The corner of his mouth moves. He looks at me. "I need a few minutes."
"He needs a few minutes," Alessia says to me in a stage whisper. "This is code for he has a list."
"I don't have a list," Rafael says.
"He absolutely has a list," Bianca says.
The three of them stand, unhurried, collecting their mugs with the energy of women who are leaving on their own terms and not because they've been asked to. Alessia squeezes my shoulder as she passes.
"Come find us after," she says quietly. "We'll be in the garden."
Then they're gone and it's just me and Rafael and the remains of breakfast and I already miss them.
He sits down across from me. No coffee, no food, just his hands flat on the island and his green eyes on my face and the particular quality of his attention that means I should probably listen.
"Security," he says. "We need to go through it."
Here we go.
"You have a detail," he continues. "Two men, rotating. They go where you go outside the estate."
"I met Dmitri last night," I say. "He's the head of security."
"Dmitri manages the estate. Your personal detail is different. They're assigned specifically to you." He pauses. "You don't go outside the gates without them. Non-negotiable."
I keep my face even. "Okay."
