Chapter 18 #2
"Your face was priceless," I said, smiling despite everything. "You looked like you'd seen a ghost."
"I had! Anna in full disapproval mode was terrifying." Elena shifted, her voice growing wistful. "Remember how we used to talk about our futures, create these wonderful lives with fake men and families?"
"And then we'd argue about who had the bigger mansion and pool, or the best behaved kids?"
We both giggled, the sound feeling strange and precious in the heavy darkness.
But gradually, our laughter faded. The silence stretched between us, comfortable but weighted. I knew we were both thinking the same thing, about the men who weren't here, who were out there somewhere in danger because of us.
I closed my eyes, willing sleep to come, trying not to think about Eric risking his life in the shadows. Beside me, Elena's breathing had grown quiet and uneven, and I suspected she was doing the same thing with thoughts of Leo.
Eventually, exhaustion won out over worry, and I drifted off to the sound of her restless sighs.
Morning came like an unwelcome alarm, slicing through the slit in the curtains. I woke to the smell of coffee and found Elena already up, sitting at her kitchen counter with her phone clutched in her hand like a lifeline.
"Anything?" I asked.
She shook her head. "Jackson texted an hour ago saying he's okay, but that's it. You?"
I checked my phone. Nothing from Eric since last night. My stomach knotted at that. The silence felt wrong, like a held breath that had gone on too long.
"Nothing."
Elena poured me coffee without asking, sliding the mug across the counter. "Meredith texted. They want us to come to the estate around noon, said we could help set up the baby's room. She'll text once Sofia is there or on the way."
"Sounds better than sitting here going crazy," I said, wrapping my hands around the warm mug. But the anxiety gnawed at me anyway, sharp and relentless. I pulled out my phone again and typed a quick message to Eric.
Just checking in. Hope you're okay.
I stared at the screen for a moment, then added a follow-up message.
Be safe.
Because apparently I'd turned into someone who sent worried girlfriend texts. When had that happened?
"That's what I thought," Elena said, then glanced at my phone. "Messaging Eric?"
"Yeah. I know he's probably busy dodging bullets or whatever counts as a normal Tuesday in his world, but—" I shrugged, feeling exposed. "Hey, can you ask Jackson if he's heard anything from Eric's team?"
Elena was already typing. Her phone buzzed almost immediately. "He says they're working different areas of the city. He'll update me once he hears anything."
The knot in my stomach tightened. Different areas meant Eric could be anywhere, facing anything.
The thought of him out there, maybe hurt or worse, made my chest feel hollow and raw.
When had I started caring this much? When had the possibility of losing him become something that terrified me more than my own potential death?
Maybe it was the danger, the way crisis stripped away all the careful walls I'd built, but I found myself confronting a truth I'd been avoiding: I wanted to try.
Really try. If we all got through this—when we got through this—I wanted to see what could happen between us without fear holding me back.
Even if it meant risking the kind of heartbreak I'd spent years protecting myself from.
The hours crawled by like wounded animals.
We showered, changed, tried to eat breakfast though neither of us had much appetite.
My phone remained stubbornly silent, and each passing minute felt like a small betrayal.
By the time Meredith's text came saying they were ready for us, I was ready to climb the walls or start a small war of my own.
The Donati estate felt simultaneously like a fortress and a sanctuary. Security personnel were more visible than usual, but inside the main house, warmth and life persisted despite the violence happening elsewhere in the city.
Sofia met us at the door with Marcello in her arms. The baby cooed happily, oblivious to the tension radiating from every adult in the room.
"Hey," she said, pulling me into a one-armed hug. "How are you holding up?"
"I've been better," I admitted. "But I'm alive, so that's something. Though at this point I'm starting to think I might be harder to kill than a cockroach, which is either really encouraging or deeply disturbing."
Meredith appeared from deeper in the house. "Come on, let's go upstairs. I've been putting off organizing the nursery for weeks, and today seems like the perfect time for a distraction project."
We followed her up the grand staircase to a sunny room that had been partially converted into a baby's room. Boxes of furniture sat waiting to be assembled, and paint samples were taped to one wall like evidence in a very boring crime scene.
"Leo keeps saying he'll hire people to do it," Meredith said, "but I want it to feel personal, you know? Like we actually put thought into it."
"What's the holdup then?" Elena asked.
"Me being indecisive about colors," Meredith admitted with a rueful smile as she touched her small baby bump. "And Leo being busy running an empire. The usual."
Sofia settled into a rocking chair with Marcello, who immediately grabbed for her necklace with the single-minded determination of someone planning a jewelry heist. "We can at least get the furniture assembled today. That's something."
I picked up an instruction manual for what appeared to be a crib. "This looks complicated. And written by someone who clearly hates humanity."
"Everything about babies is complicated," Sofia said, bouncing Marcello gently. "But worth it."
We worked in comfortable silence for a while, the mundane task of reading instructions and sorting pieces oddly soothing.
I found myself relaxing slightly, the tight knot of anxiety in my chest loosening just a fraction.
Nothing like Swedish furniture assembly to make you forget about ongoing mafia wars.
"So," I finally said, because I couldn't not ask. "What's happening out there? With the Malatestas?"
Meredith paused in sorting through crib screws. "There's an all-out war going on. Most of the Malatestas fled overnight. The few who remained are having shootouts in their old territories."
"Are you scared?" I asked.
All three of them exchanged looks, the kind of weighted glance that spoke volumes.
"Of course we're scared," Sofia said finally, adjusting Marcello in her arms. "Anyone who says they're not is either lying or stupid."
"But," Meredith continued, "the Donatis, Hales, and Savocas together? That's a powerful alliance. As far as we've heard, there haven't been any casualties on our side yet."
"Yet," I repeated. The word hung in the air like a threat.
"Yet," Elena echoed quietly.
"Jackson promised to text me every few hours," Elena said, picking up a wooden slat that would become part of the crib. "So far he's kept that promise."
"Eric hasn't texted since last night," I admitted, then tried for humor to cover the ache in my chest. "But knowing him, he's probably too busy being stoic and heroic to check his phone."
"He's probably in the thick of it," Sofia said gently. "The Hales are taking point on a lot of the operations since it's their alliance that triggered this."
That should've made me feel worse, but somehow it didn't. Eric knew what he was doing.
He'd survived in this world long before I came back into his life to complicate everything.
The man had been dealing with dangerous situations since I was still trying to figure out how to parallel park most likely.
"Let's focus on this," Meredith said, holding up the instruction manual. "Because if we don't get this crib assembled correctly, Leo will insist on hiring someone and I'll never hear the end of it."
We threw ourselves into the task, and slowly, the nursery began to take shape. The crib went together more easily than expected, though we had a moment of panic when we thought we'd put the front panel on backward. Paint samples got narrowed down to three options, all variations of soft gray-blue.
Marcello provided entertainment throughout, his baby babbling filling the spaces between our conversation. When he got fussy, we took turns holding him, and I found myself rocking him against my chest while Sofia assembled the changing table.
"You're good with him," Meredith observed.
"Don't get any ideas," I said, but the words came out soft. "I can barely keep myself alive lately. A baby would be a disaster of epic proportions."
But as I looked down at Marcello's tiny face, his eyes drooping as he started to drift off, something warm and terrifying blossomed in my chest. Something that felt dangerously like hope for a future I'd never let myself imagine before, one where I might actually survive long enough to have something this precious to protect.
Where maybe, just maybe, I could build something real instead of just running from the wreckage of what came before.