Chapter 15
Lucia
The envelope is too thick.Like it wants to be noticed. Like it knows it has the power to rearrange my life just by existing.
It lands in my mailbox with the rest of the junk. Pizza flyers, grocery coupons, a glossy postcard for a gym I will never join, and somehow it still feels louder than everything else. I don’t even have to open it to know it isn’t good. My body knows. My stomach tightens. My shoulders creep up toward my ears. My skin prickles, the way it does right before a door slam.
I bring it inside. Nico is on the living room rug, lined up with his cars, tongue peeking out between his lips as he nudges a blue one exactly parallel to the edge of the coffee table. He’s so serious about it. So careful. Like if his cars are lined up straight, the world will stay calm.
I hate how much I understand that.
“Mommy,” he says without looking up. “Look. Rows.”
“I see,” I manage, and my smile feels like it’s glued on. “That’s perfect.”
He hums, satisfied, and goes back to arranging. I stand in my kitchenette with the envelope in my hands, and I don’t move for a long second. Bag of groceries on the counter. Sink full ofdishes. The kettle still warm from the tea I drank like it could keep my nerves from buzzing.
I tell myself to breathe. I tell myself not everything is Marco.
Then I flip the envelope over and see the return address. A law firm name I’ve never heard of, but the letterhead has that polished, expensive confidence. The kind that doesn’t ask. The kind that tells.
My fingers go cold as I open the envelope. Not opening it doesn’t make it not real. I learned that with bruises. With bank statements. With apologies that always came after the fact.
Paper slides out. Multiple pages. Stamped. Signed. Too official. Too clean.
And there it is.
Marco Mancini.
My vision blurs for a second, like my eyes are trying to protect me by refusing to focus. I read the first line. Then the second.
Claim of paternity.
Petition for custody.
My mouth goes dry. The room tilts enough to make me grab the counter with my free hand. Like the floor is reminding me that balance is something you earn.
I skim. Dates. My name. Nico’s name.
Nico Cannata.
My son’s name printed on white paper next to Marco’s, like they belong in the same sentence.
Like they belong in the same world.
I swallow hard and keep reading because I can’t not. The details are wrong. Some of them. But they’re wrong in a way that’s strategic. Close enough. Almost believable. A timeline that nearly fits if you squint and don’t know me and don’t know what happened in that apartment, in that hotel, in that flight.
A court seal.
A hearing date.
A sentence that makes my blood turn to ice:Failure to appear may result in judgment by default.
My breath catches. I stare at the words until they stop being letters and become something else. An opening. A door Marco is trying to shove his foot into.
Nico’s car clatters against another. He looks up, eyebrows pinched. “Mommy?”
I snap my gaze to him like I’ve been caught doing something dangerous. “Sorry,” I say too fast. “Just… dropped something.”
