Chapter 17
Lucia
The hotel roomsmells like old smoke and lemon cleaner. Not cigarettes exactly, just the ghost of them, soaked into carpet that will never be new again. The lemon is someone’s attempt to cover it. The lemon loses.
Nico doesn’t care. He’s on the bed with his shoes kicked off, lining up the little plastic dinosaurs I bought at the pharmacy down the street because I needed him to smile at least once today. He makes them face the same direction. All tails aligned. All feet squared to the edge of the comforter. His brow is furrowed with the seriousness of a man managing a problem no one else understands.
“Too close,” he mutters, and nudges the triceratops a millimeter to the left.
I watch him and feel my throat tighten as I sit at the cheap desk by the window. My laptop is closed, legal papers spread out like a crime scene. Court orders. Visitation schedule. A date circled in red because I’m afraid if I don’t circle it, I’ll miss it, and if I miss it, the judge will decide I don’t care.
That’s what this is now. Not what’s true. What it looks like.
Outside, the city moves like it always has. Cars and strangers and people walking dogs and carrying coffee as if their livesaren’t balancing on other people’s signatures. Inside, my world is one bad sentence away from collapsing. The court hearing still plays in the back of my mind like a loop I can’t stop. The clerk, reading the case name. Marco in his clean suit, like rehab turned him into something decent. Enzo, sitting like a shadow with a smile.
And then…him.
Turo.
I felt him before I saw him, like my body recognized gravity shifting. Like the room got denser.
And when my eyes found his…
I don’t know what happened to my blood. It vanished. It left me white and shaking and careful not to show it because fear is ammunition in a courtroom.
I didn’t look at him again. I couldn’t. Because if I did, I’d be asking myself questions I can’t afford to answer. Did he know? Did he recognize me?
The judge ordered DNA testing. Two weeks. Two weeks until the truth is a syringe and a lab report and a bomb. Two weeks until Marco isn’t the father on paper, and the court asks the question out loud.
Who is?
I press my fingertips to my temple and breathe slow. Like breathing can keep the future from arriving.
Nico makes a satisfied humming sound. “Mommy,” he says without looking up, “they’re safe.”
Safe.
The word hits me wrong. A dart to the ribs.
“Yeah,” I manage. “They’re safe.”
He taps one dinosaur’s head gently, as if for reassurance. Then resumes his work.
I pick up the court order again even though I already know it. Supervised visitation. Twice a week. Two hours. Location approved. Monitor present.
It should be a relief. It feels like a leash.
Marco has visited once. Once. He showed up fifteen minutes late, smelling like expensive cologne and arrogance disguised as compliance. He glanced at Nico like Nico was an object he’d forgotten he owned. Then he spent twenty minutes on his phone. Smiling at texts, scrolling, not even pretending.
Nico tried. God, he tried. He offered him a dinosaur. He asked him what his favorite color was.
Marco didn’t answer. He barely looked up. Then he left early because he had “a meeting.” He kissed Nico’s hair in a gesture that was more for the monitor than for my child.
And Nico, my sweet, serious Nico, watched him go without crying. Just sat very still with his hand on his ear and asked me later, “Did I do it wrong?”
That was the moment I knew for certain. Marco doesn’t want a son. He wants leverage. A kid is currency in his world. A pawn with a name.
And now the Mancinis have my child on a court schedule like he’s something that can be managed.
