Only then do I pick up my phone. The burner. The one I keep for emergencies. The one that lives at the bottom of my bag, forgotten on purpose. The one with a number only one personhas, because limiting access feels like control, and control feels like safety.
Unknown number.
My stomach drops so fast, it’s almost physical, like an elevator plunging, like my organs forget where they’re supposed to be for a second.
I open the message.
You think you’re safe now?
We know where the boy sleeps.
The words don’t register immediately. My brain skims them the way it skims bad news, refusing to let meaning land all at once.
Then I see the photo. For a heartbeat, my mind refuses to cooperate. The image feels wrong, like it’s not meant for me, like my vision has glitched. The edges blur, soften, as if my brain is desperately trying to buy time. Then it sharpens.
The Mancini estate.
The gates.
The curve of the drive.
Stone lions caught mid-shadow.
Taken from outside the perimeter.
And there, just inside the grounds, unmistakable even at a glance, is Turo’s car. From this morning.
The world goes very quiet. The kind that happens when your blood drains out of your head and everything pulls inward, tight and cold. My hands go numb around the phone. My pulse slams hard enough that I can feel it in my throat, in my ears, in places that have no business having a heartbeat.
This isn’t a threat sent from far away. This isn’t someone guessing. This is someone standing close enough to photograph the house. Someone patient enough to wait for the right angle. Someone who knows schedules. Patterns. Habits.
Someone who knows where my son sleeps.
I don’t scream. I don’t cry. Those are for later. Those are private.
Right now, I move.
“Nico,” I say calmly, my voice steady enough to fool even myself. I place the phone face down on the side table like it’s nothing, like it’s not radioactive. “Sweetheart, let’s put the dinosaurs away for a bit, okay?”
He looks up at me, brow creasing slightly. “Why?”
“Because it’s almost dinner,” I say, already reaching for a toy, already setting the rhythm. “And I want you comfy.”
He accepts that immediately. He always has.
Too easily.
We gather the dinosaurs together, his small hands trusting, mine precise. I keep my movements slow, deliberate, so he doesn’t feel the speed screaming through my veins. I walk him to his room, smiling, chatting softly, my body running entirely on instinct while my mind fractures outward into worst-case scenarios. Angles, distances, response times, how fast I could get him out if I had to.
I settle him on the bed. Smooth his hair. Smile. Every gesture careful. Every touch soft. Like I’m laying down calm on top of a live wire.
“You stay here and read,” I say. “I’ll be right back.”
He looks at me for a long second, eyes searching my face like he’s learned to do. “Promise?” he asks.
The word hits me straight in the chest. I swallow.
“I promise.”
