Page 39 of The Mafioso’s Bride

“I want to finish breakfast.”

“All right.”

He stays across the table. He doesn’t ask again.

Afterward, I take my book to the sitting room. Luca works in his office. Men enter through the front door twice. Their shoes strike the marble, followed by brief conversations too far away to separate. A door shuts below the stairs.

The same paragraph remains at the top of my page. Luca comes to the sitting-room entrance. His jacket covers the white shirt now, and the silver tardigrade rests on his lapel. He kept the pin.

“I need to go to Dante’s office,” he says. “Mattia and six men will remain here. Susan is in the kitchen.”

“All right.”

“Before I go, I need to tell you about your father. He was captured last night. He’s secured in the basement.”

My fingers close harder around the book.

“You will never be required to go near him or speak to him,” Luca says. “He cannot reach you.”

“All right.”

“Giuseppe hasn’t been located. Don’t go outside without security.”

“I won’t.”

He pauses. Yesterday I would have gone to him and asked for a kiss before he left. My fingers tighten around the edges of my book instead.

“Do you want anything before I go?”

Choose me.

“No.”

His mouth forms a hard line. “Call if that changes.”

He leaves with his hands at his sides. The front door closes. A car engine fades beyond the windows. I count the blue shapes on the rug, but the number keeps breaking apart after twenty-eight.

I return to my room and change into the blue tardigrade shirt. Suppressing the interest doesn’t make it disappear. The animal on the front has eight short legs and an inaccurate smiling mouth. Tardigrades don’t smile. They have no facial muscles for it.

The stuffed tardigrade remains beside Luca’s keyboard. He said it could stay there. I don’t go to get it. A knock comes from the hall.

Mattia stands outside when I open my door. “Mrs. DiCenzo, I need you to stay on this floor for the next hour.”

“Why?”

“We’re moving the prisoner to the interview room.”

“My father.”

His gaze moves toward the stairs. Two men wait at the landing below. “Yes.”

“I want to speak to him.”

Mattia’s mouth tightens. “Mr. DiCenzo said you will never be required to go near him or speak to him.”

“You already told me. I choose to.”

“Mrs. DiCenzo⁠—”