"Unsupervised outings aren't happening. Not right now, not with the current territorial situation." He holds my gaze. "There are ongoing conflicts. Active ones. Being my wife makes you a person of interest to people I have problems with."
He means I am a target. He's saying it in the most clinical way possible but that is what he means.
"So I'm under house arrest," I say.
"You're under protection."
"They sound different and feel identical."
His jaw shifts. "Gia."
"I'm just being accurate." I wrap both hands around my mug. "You're telling me I can't leave without permission and two armed men. In what world is that not confinement?"
"In the world where the alternative is you leaving alone and someone using you to get to me." His voice stays even but there's an edge underneath it now, something controlled and direct. "I've seen what that looks like. I know what it costs."
The way he says it lands differently than everything else he's said this morning.
"I understand the danger," I say, and I mean it genuinely, I grew up in this world and I know what happens to people who get careless. "I'm not arguing about the security. I'm telling you that two armed men following me everywhere and no unsupervised outings feels like being kept, not protected, and those are two different things and I need you to understand that distinction even if the protocol stays the same."
He looks at me for a long moment.
Say something. Argue with me. Tell me I'm wrong. Give me something to push against because you sitting there actually considering what I just said is significantly harder to deal with than if you'd just told me to stop being difficult.
"I understand the distinction," he says.
I blink.
"The protocol stays the same," he continues. "But I hear you."
That's it. No negotiation, no apology, no concession. Just: I hear you, protocol stays. It lands better than it should, which is annoying.
He heard me. He didn't fix it and he didn't dismiss it and I don't know what to do with a man who does neither.
"Fine," I say, finishing my coffee.
"The detail starts today," he says, standing. "Dmitri will introduce you."
"Great."
He picks up his jacket from the back of the chair, the meeting concluded in his head, and I sit there watching him prepare toleave this kitchen the same way he entered it, contained and purposeful and giving absolutely nothing away.
"Rafael," I say.
He stops.
"The girls said you are the more rational one." I hold his gaze. "I find that hard to believe."
He looks at me. One beat. Two.
"They talk too much," he says.
He leaves.
I sit in the kitchen alone with my empty mug and the remains of Marta's good eggs, thinking about Alessia's face when she saidit takes timeand Bianca laughing about reading glasses and Isabella's seventy-year-old focaccia man.
Happy,they're actually happy.
I look at the door Rafael just walked through.
