She stiffens immediately. “No,” she says, too fast. Too sharp. “I… no.”
Her voice cracks on the edge of the panic she refuses to admit exists. I watch her shift Nico higher against her chest, tightening her hold like the wordnophysically anchors her.
The sight pulls something in me taut. This is what devotion looks like when it’s been forged by fear.
“He’s family,” I say instead of correcting her. “He raised my nephews. He’ll sit in the chair and read until your son sleeps deeper, and then he’ll sit there longer.”
Gianni inclines his head slightly. Respectful. Patient. Not offended.
Lucia looks down at Nico. I see the war play out across her face. She wants to fight. She wants to run. She wants to collapse. Exhaustion shows finally, slipping through the cracks in her control. Her lashes flutter once like she’s fighting the urge to blink too long. She swallows. Hard.
“We’ll be right here,” I add. “In the next room.”
Her eyes snap up to mine. Bright. Sharp. Furious with herself for needing anything from me.
“You promise?”
The question is a blade. Because she’s asked men to promise before. Men like Marco. Men who used promises like rope. I don’t tell her to trust me. I don’t offer softness I haven’t earned.
“I promise Marco won’t step foot in this house tonight,” I say. “And there is no way for him to reach your son.”
That lands. Her stare holds mine for a long second, as if she’s trying to find the exact point where I might break. She doesn’t. Her shoulders drop a fraction. A surrender she hates.
She hands Nico over. Watching her do it hits me like a physical blow. Not because I’m afraid. Because she’s giving me something no one gives a man like me willingly.
Trust.
Gianni takes Nico, murmuring something soft in Italian I don’t catch. Nico stirs, frowns, then settles again, his small hand lifting briefly to his ear before falling slack.
The gesture punches straight through me. My hand twitches toward my own ear before I stop it. Lucia watches Nico’s face like she’s memorizing him in case the world steals him away.
I want to tell her it won’t.
I don’t.
Words are cheap. Safety is not.
When the guest room door closes and Gianni takes his seat beside the bed, Lucia exhales shakily, like she’s been underwater too long. Her hands clasp together, then unclasp, then clasp again. A nervous rhythm. She’s trying to keep herself from shaking.
“He’s safe,” I say.
She nods once, tight. “I know. I just… needed to hear it.”
I gesture toward my study. “Come,” I say. “We should talk before the sun comes up.”
She follows. Not because she wants to. Because she understands the same thing I do. Tonight isn’t about comfort. It’s about what comes next.
I close the study door behind us. The room seals itself the way it always does. Quiet, insulated, built for truths that don’t survive daylight.
Lucia stands just inside, arms folded tight across her middle. She doesn’t sit. Neither do I. She’s close enough now that I can hear her breathing. Controlled but uneven. Her pulse is visible in the delicate jump at her throat.
It shouldn’t matter.
It does.
Three years press into the space between us. I start with the only question that matters.
“When were you going to tell me?”
