Chapter 33
Lucia
The worst partabout waiting is that your body doesn’t know it’s supposed to stay quiet. It keeps moving, anyway. Small, useless movements that make you feel like you’re doing something when you’re not. It tightens your shoulders. It clenches your stomach. It makes your hands hover like they’re searching for a task to latch onto so your brain doesn’t have to keep replaying the same three images on loop:
Turo’s mouth against Nico’s hair.
Nico’s arms around his neck.
The way Turo’s eyes didn’t soften when he promised. They sharpened. Like the promise was a blade he’d just put in his own ribs.
I always come back.
I stood in the doorway and watched him leave like a woman watching a storm walk into the sea.
And now the house is still. Still, but not peaceful. Still, the way a room is still after someone slams a door and you’re waiting to see if it opens again.
Nico is on the floor in the family wing with his cars lined in perfect rows, a guard crouched beside him with patient attentionlike this is the most important assignment of his life. Which, in a way, it is.
“Blue one goes first,” Nico instructs gravely.
“Yes,piccolo,” the guard says, dead serious. “Blue goes first.”
Nico nods once, satisfied, and nudges the blue car forward exactly one inch. He glances at me like he needs a witness.
I give him one. A smile I make real on purpose. My chest aches with it. Because this… this quiet, domestic lie… should make me feel safe. Instead, it makes me feel like the universe is setting me up to take it away.
I sit on the couch with my legs folded beneath me, posture contained, hands clasped loosely in my lap like I’m practicing calm. I’ve gotten good at that. I can hold my face still through anything. I can make my voice warm while my blood turns to ice.
I’m good at surviving.
But partners don’t just survive. Partners see. Partners anticipate. Partners don’t let the man they love walk into a trap because it’s his job to be brave.
And I can feel it. This restless, crawling unease, like my body is trying to tell me something my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
Nico’s head tilts as he pushes the red car into the line. His fingers go to his ear, quick and automatic. He’s been doing it all morning. Not constant. Not dramatic. Just enough that I notice every time, like a bell going off in my chest.
“You okay, baby?” I ask lightly.
He doesn’t look up. “Yes.”
It’s the same answer I used to give Marco. The one that meantno, but it’s safer if you believe me.
I swallow and make my voice gentler. “Do you want a snack?” I ask. “Something crunchy?”
Nico considers, still touching his ear like he’s checking whether the world is stable. Then he nods.
“Crackers,” he says. “Not broken.”
“Not broken,” I repeat, because he likes what he likes and control comes in small shapes for kids who’ve had too much chaos.
I stand and move toward the sideboard where snacks are kept in a perfectly arranged drawer. Luxury is so efficient when it wants to be. Everything has a place. Everything is labeled. Everything looks like a life that never had to improvise.
I’m reaching for the box when one of the guards—Matteo’s younger cousin, I think—steps into the doorway. He pauses like he’s deciding whether to speak. The hesitation pricks at my skin.
“What is it?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral.
“A message came through,” he says. “For the don.”
