Page 32 of The Ache That Stayed

But some edges don’t dull. They settle.

“When?” I asked.

“Tonight.”

I didn’t ask how he found her. I didn’t ask what he said. If she wasn’t screaming, she wasn’t in immediate physical danger. Which meant this wasn’t a crisis. It was something older. Heavier.

“I’ll be there in the morning.”

“I thought you had—”

“I’ll be there.”

Her breath left her slowly, with the weary resignation of someone bracing for a collision we both always knew might come.

“Okay.”

She hung up, but the echo of her voice stayed.

We didn’t say goodnight. But I knew that quiet. I knew the way she compressed emotion when she didn’t want it spilling out. I had seen that restraint, after Santino left and she told me she was fine. And she was anything but.

I stayed on the terrace long after the call ended, staring at nothing. The sea below moved with quiet violence. Familiar. Controlled. Dangerous if underestimated.

I let the cold air strip instinct from emotion, the storm tightening in my chest.

I thought of Romano asleep inside, safe. I thought of her, awake, spiralling. And I thought of the man who had lost the right to be near her. Then I called my sister.

By sunrise, Romano was in Alessia’s arms in Palma, babbling happily, delighted by the change of scenery.

Kyra was already there, probably turning the Leopardi estate upside down while Antonio pretended not to encourage it.

I made a mental note to send my sister the limited-edition Birkin she’d been eyeing for months. She’d earned it.

I crouched in front of Romano and brushed his hair back.

“I’ll be back before you miss me.”

He laughed and grabbed my collar like he didn’t believe me. He was a splitting image of Roxanne, but had my eyes.

I kissed his forehead and stood.

Leaving him when an unease settled never sat well with me. But this wasn’t a boardroom meeting or territorial negotiation.

This was her.

And if her voice tightens, I move.

Ireland was pale and wind-bright when I arrived. The trees along the road were stripped bare, branches skeletal against the low white sky. The wind sliced sideways, cold and merciless. It felt like the land itself was bracing for impact.

I saw the bike before I saw the house.

Black. Lean. Reckless.

Parked in the gravel like a statement.

He was leaning against it, cigarette between his fingers, staring into the treeline across the road as if expecting something to emerge.

He looked different. Broader through the shoulders. Beard darker and thicker. His dark hair longer now, falling over his eyes that had lost none of their calculation. He looked more rugged. More worn than I remembered.