Chapter 12 #2
Stefano looks at her. “I learned from the best.”
Something passes between them.
Fast.
Small.
Gone before anyone else might notice if they were not watching him as closely as I am.
Dolores’ face softens by a fraction.
Stefano leaves before it can become anything larger.
The room feels different after he is gone.
Not safer, exactly.
Less charged.
Like a storm moved one room over instead of ending.
Dolores watches the doorway for a moment, then sighs in the tired way women sigh when men they love insist on being difficult.
“He was always like that,” she says.
I look at her. “Like what?”
“Leaving before someone thanks him.”
“I wasn’t going to thank him.”
“No. But you were thinking about it.”
“I was not.”
She gives me a look that makes me feel twelve years old and badly behaved.
Erin leans toward me. “She knows things.”
“I’m noticing.”
Dolores smiles and begins gathering empty plates. “Children, finish what you can. Heath, not too fast. Erin, no, Mr. Buttons doesn't need jam.”
“He might.”
“He doesn't.”
“He has teeth,” Heath says quietly.
Dolores turns to him with solemn respect. “Then he needs to brush them later.”
Heath’s lips twitch again.
My heart hurts.
When Heath starts fading again, Dolores orders everyone to lower their voices and dims the room.
Erin curls beside him with a book, proud to be given the job of turning pages softly.
Omar remains near the door. I sit at the low table, pretending to sort colored pencils while really watching Heath’s breathing.
Dolores sits across from me with coffee.
Real coffee.
Strong enough to qualify as a controlled substance.
She pushes a cup toward me.
I take it. “Thank you.”
“You have manners when cornered.”
“I have manners.”
“You have weapons pretending to be manners.”
“That’s more accurate.”
She smiles.
For a few minutes, we sit in the softened quiet while Erin whispers through a picture book and Heath drifts in and out of sleep. Dolores watches them with a face that reveals too much and not enough.
“You are good with them,” she says.
“I’m trying.”
“That is not what I said.”
I wrap both hands around the coffee cup. “Trying is all I have right now.”
“Then try loudly when needed and gently when not.”
“That sounds like a philosophy.”
“It is experience.”
I glance toward the doorway where Omar stands. “You raised Stefano?”
Omar’s eyes flick toward us.
Dolores doesn't look at him. “Omar, go intimidate the hallway.”
He stiffens. “I am assigned—”
“Then assign yourself six feet farther away.”
For one incredible second, I think Omar might argue.
He doesn't.
He steps into the hall.
I stare after him. “I am in awe.”
“You should be. He was a terrible child.”
“Omar?”
“Still is.”
I laugh before I can stop myself.
Dolores’ smile softens, then fades as her gaze shifts toward the hall Stefano used. “I didn't raise Stefano. Not as much as I wanted to.”
That lands more heavily than I expect.
I say nothing.
She looks down into her coffee. “Men in families like these aren’t raised. They are sharpened. Some are sharpened into useful blades. Some break. Some become exactly like the hand holding them.”
“And Stefano?”
Her mouth presses together.
Not displeasure.
Memory.
“Stefano survived his father,” she says.
The room seems to quiet around that.
Outside the doorway, I can still sense Omar, probably hearing every word and pretending he is not. Good. Let him. Some stories feel like they require witnesses.
“What was his father like?” I ask.
Dolores’ eyes lift to mine. “A man who believed love was a weakness and proved it by removing every soft thing from his son’s life.”
“It’s my understanding that Stefano’s mother died,” I say as my grip tightens around the cup.
The words come out before I decide whether I should share them, and Dolores’ face instantly changes.
“He told you that?”
“Not exactly.” I think of the study, of Stefano’s voice when he mentioned losing what made heirs weak. “He implied he didn’t see her again after he was five.”
Dolores looks toward the sleeping children. Her voice lowers. “He didn't.”
“Why?”
“Because his father decided a mother made a boy soft.”
The words hit ugly.
Simple.
Cruel.
I think of Heath reaching for Erin in his sleep. I think of Stefano stopping in the doorway yesterday because Erin froze when he entered. I think of him handing me the thermometer instead of taking control himself. I think of him telling Erin no one would take Heath unless I went with him.
“His father took her away?” I ask.
Dolores nods once. “Sent her back to her family. Cut off contact. Letters. Calls. Anything. Stefano was told she left because she was weak. Later because she didn't want him. Later because wanting her made him less worthy of the name.”
Something cold moves through me.
“That’s monstrous.”
“Yes.”
Dolores says it simply, without drama, which makes it worse.
“He was five?”
“Five.”
I look toward the hall without meaning to.
There is no sign of Stefano. No trace of the boy he had been. Only the memory of the man in a black suit arranging medical care with terrifying efficiency and telling a crying child he didn't lie to make her easier to calm.
“He must have hated him,” I say.
“He did.” Dolores takes a slow breath. “And loved him, because children are cruelly loyal before they learn better.”
Dolores studies me for a moment before continuing. “I worked in the house then. Kitchen, laundry, whatever was needed. I was not important enough to protect him, and not close enough to be allowed to love him openly. But when he was small, he would find me when he could. Mostly when he was hurt.”
My throat tightens.
I hate the image immediately.
Small Stefano.
Hurt.
Silent.
Finding the one woman in the house allowed to be kind only when no one important was watching.
“What did you do?”
“What I could. Fed him. Cleaned cuts. Told him stories. Told him his mother loved him, even when his father said otherwise.”
My eyes snap to hers. “You told him that?”
“Of course.”
“That was dangerous.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Dolores looks at me like the answer should be obvious. “Because it was true.”
I have no response to that.
She drinks her coffee.
I sit there with mine cooling between my hands, trying to reconcile the man who put a gun beneath his jacket because Alistair Voss touched my wrist with a child who learned love could be removed as punishment before he lost his baby teeth.
I do not want to feel sorry for Stefano Savarese.
It feels like stepping into water with sharks that I already know have teeth.
Dolores sees too much. “Understanding a wound doesn't excuse the weapon it makes.”
I look at her.
She gives me a small, sad smile. “Do not worry. I am not asking you to forgive him for the things he chooses now.”
“I wasn’t going to.”
“No. You were trying very hard not to soften.”
I open my mouth.
She points at me. “Do not insult me by lying badly.”
I close it.
She nods as if satisfied.
“I don’t trust him,” I say.
“Good.”
That surprises me.
Dolores sets her cup down. “Trust is not a thing a man like Stefano should be handed because he had a sad childhood. Make him earn what he wants from you.”
Heat rises before I can stop it.
Dolores’ eyes sharpen.
Oh no.
I look down at my coffee.
Too late.
She hums softly. “Interesting.”
“No.”
“I said nothing.”
“You said interesting.”
“That is a word, not an accusation.”
“It sounded like both.”
Her smile returns, small and wicked around the edges. “He watches you differently.”
I should stand. I should leave. I should fake a medical emergency, though with Heath asleep nearby that feels like tempting the universe to punish me.
“He watches everyone,” I say.
“No. Stefano studies everyone. He watches you. Intently I might add. Studying is hunting for weakness. Watching, well that is something entirely different. Distracting.”
The distinction settles under my skin, unwelcome and impossible to ignore.
I think of the club. The car. The way his thumb brushed the corner of my mouth after the kiss. The way he told me to say again that I was not his.
I think of last night, of being carried, of the word reward leaving my mouth like I had no survival instincts at all.
Dolores watches my face and sighs. “Ah.”
“No ah.”
“Too late.”
“I’m not discussing this with you.”
“Of course not.” She lifts her coffee again. “You will sit there and pretend not to think about it while I pretend not to notice. This is how women have survived difficult men for centuries.”
Despite myself, I laugh.
Quietly.
Heath shifts on the couch, and both of us look over.
He settles again, cheek pressed into the pillow, Erin’s book resting open near his knees.
The warmth of the moment thins.
Dolores’ gaze softens. “They need safe noise.”
I look back at her. “Safe noise?”
“A kitchen. A woman muttering about dishes. Someone humming. Doors opening for normal reasons. People nearby who aren’t guards. Children who have lived in silence learn to fear it.”
I think of Heath awake all night, listening for footsteps.
“So you're trying to create a safe noise? A sense of normalcy almost?”
Dolores smiles faintly. “I try.”
“Is that why he brought you here?”
“Yes.”
“He thought of that.”