Four
Chiara
The outdoor farmer’s market crowd is thick with locals, all looking for fresh-from-the-farm food for the week. A violinist plays something bright near the flower stall.
I like this part of the week. No one here knows me. I am just another woman weighing tomatoes in her palm, debating between heirloom and Roma, sliding cash across folding tables. I move slowly on purpose, making sure I’m nothing memorable enough to look twice at.
I stop at a fresh herb vendor and grab a few springs of rosemary and a handful of basil. I tuck the herbs into my canvas bag, thinking about my mom’s ragu, and step back into the current of bodies moving through the main aisle. Someone bumps my shoulder. I murmur an apology without looking up.
Suddenly, goosebumps prickle up my arms.
That’s when a breath brushes the shell of my ear.
“You can leave with me quietly,” a voice says softly, like we’re discussing dinner plans. “Or loudly. Your choice.”
I recognize that voice. It’s my brother. Massimo.
For a second, I think my mind has misfired. That it’s memory. Stress. Some phantom echo I’ve been waiting for since the day I left.
My heart doesn’t pound. It drops.
He’s close enough that I can feel the heat of him at my back. Close enough that if I turned my head, my cheek would brush his jacket.
He smiles like he has time.
“I’m not asking twice,” he continues, still calm. “Let’s not make a scene.”
The market keeps moving. A child laughs somewhere to my left. A vendor argues over change. No one is looking at us.
The aisle narrows—strollers on one side, stacked crates on the other.
I don’t turn around. I don’t take my earbuds out. I shift my weight, as if I didn’t hear a word and step forward into the crowd.
His hand closes around my wrist, the pressure deliberate rather than impulsive.
The canvas bag slips lower on my arm, vegetables knocking against my hip.
“Don’t,” he says quietly. “You know I don’t like being ignored.”
I finally look at him.
Massimo hasn’t changed. Same careful hair.
Same measured expression. If someone passed us on the sidewalk, they’d see a couple walking together.
To anyone watching, he looked like he was guiding me through the market—close enough to shield, close enough to soothe.
No one would notice how his fingers pressed just hard enough to remind me I wasn’t choosing this.
“You’re making this more complicated than it needs to be,” he says. “Dad wants to talk.”
“I don’t know you,” I reply evenly, loud enough for the woman beside us to hear. “Please let go of me.”
The woman glances over, uncertain. Massimo smiles at her.
“She’s dramatic,” he says lightly. “Family.”
He shifts his hold. He’s always been good at optics.
“It’s time to come home,” he murmurs to me. “You’ve had your little experiment. Now, we’re done.”
“Sir,” a male voice says from somewhere behind him, controlled and precise. “She asked you to let go.”
Massimo doesn’t release me, but his attention shifts. “Mind your own business.”
The pressure on my wrist disappears.
I don’t see who has stepped in yet. I just feel the absence of Massimo’s hand, the air where his fingers were.
I slide my hand back toward my body, flexing it once, steadying myself before I look up. I look for my options of how to disappear in the crowd, but people have stopped and are watching.
He’s standing just behind Massimo’s shoulder, close enough to intervene, far enough not to crowd me.
It’s Mr. Perfect. Designer jeans. He’s wearing a crisp white button-down shirt that fits too cleanly to be off the rack.
Ferragamo loafers and his sunglasses pushed up into his hair like he wasn’t expecting to need them.
Everything about him is deliberate. Even the way he’s holding his posture—relaxed but ready.
Massimo gives him a quick once-over, the way men do when they’re measuring threat. “This doesn’t concern you,” Massimo says smoothly. “We’re family.”
His gaze flicks to me, not lingering, just checking. Assessing. “She asked you to let go.”
Massimo smiles like he’s amused. “And I did.”
“You didn’t,” I say.
Mr. Perfect’s eyes come back to mine. They’re steady. Observant.
“You should walk away,” Massimo tells him. “Before this becomes something inconvenient.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” he replies. His voice is calm, almost bored. “She can, though. If she wants.”
It’s the first time anyone has said that out loud.
If she wants.
Massimo’s hand flexes at his side.
“You’re misunderstanding,” Massimo says. “My sister’s been under a lot of stress. She left without saying goodbye. We’re trying to handle it privately.”
“I’m not your sister,” I say, my tone flat. “I don’t know you.”
A small circle has formed around us now. Not dramatic. Just curious glances. People slowing without meaning to.
Massimo’s expression doesn’t crack. “You’re embarrassing yourself,” he murmurs to me.
A man two stalls down raises his voice. “Somebody call the police.”
The word spreads faster than the sound system near the flower stand. It doesn’t need volume. It just needs suggestion.
Police.
My pulse trips hard enough that I feel it in my teeth.
Massimo doesn’t look alarmed. “You always did enjoy making things difficult,” he says quietly. Close enough that no one else hears it. “This won’t end the way you think.”
I want to step back, but there’s nowhere to go. Strollers. Crates of oranges. People pretending not to stare.
Mr. Perfect shifts, just enough that Massimo has to adjust his stance. “Do you want to leave?” he asks me.
The question slices clean through the noise.
I don’t trust my voice at first. My mouth is dry. “Yes.”
Sirens thread into the air, thin at first. Then louder. The sound ricochets off buildings and folds into the market noise.
Massimo leans closer without touching me.
“We know where you live,” he murmurs. “You can’t escape.”
“Step back,” Mr. Perfect says, his voice menacing.
Massimo holds his gaze for a long second. It’s the look he used to give people who crossed him at school. The one that made them retreat without understanding why. Then he lifts his hands, casual. “I’m not causing a problem,” he says. “I’m leaving.”
He looks at me once more. Not angry. Not rushed. Confident. “This isn’t over,” he mouths to me.
My throat tightens.
The police officers arrive on bikes, weaving through the crowd with practiced ease.
One swings off his bike and positions himself between us. The other reaches for Massimo’s arm, not restraining him, just claiming space.
“Ma’am, are you okay?” asks the man with Chen on his name tag.
My throat tightens unexpectedly. I swallow it down. “I’m fine.”
The officer studies my face, and then my wrist. I drop my hand before he can look too closely. “Do you know this man?”
The answer lodges behind my ribs. “No.” It comes out steadier than I feel.
The other officer approaches with Massimo. “He says you’re his sister.”
My stomach flips hard enough that I taste acid. “He’s mistaken.”
Massimo doesn’t interrupt. He never does when silence works better.
“Did he threaten you?” Officer Chen asks.
“He grabbed me.” I look at the spectacle gathering around us. “I think he thought I was someone else.”
The officer’s eyes shift briefly to Massimo.
“Do you want to press charges?” The question cracks something open inside me. If I say yes, this explodes. If I say no, I’m alone with it again.
Massimo adjusts his jacket sleeve like this is administrative.
“No,” I say. “I don’t. It was a mistake.”
The officer nods, but he doesn’t look convinced. He speaks quietly to Massimo. I catch fragments—misunderstanding, move along, can’t detain.
Massimo answers with easy composure. He even smiles once.
Within minutes, they’re guiding him toward the edge of the market. No cuffs. No escalation. Just separation.
He doesn’t fight it.
As Massimo passes the edge of the crowd, I notice Salvatore Russo, my father’s enforcer. He gives him the smallest nod. Not encouragement. Not reassurance. Confirmation.
The market noise returns slowly. Conversations resume.
I bend to pick up my bag and realize my hands are shaking. Not visibly. Just enough that the canvas trembles against my fingers.
I hate that he can still do that to me.
The officer nods once, satisfied that he’s leaving, and wheels his bike back toward the edge of the market. The second officer turns toward Mr. Perfect.
“Sir, your name?”
The man doesn’t shift his stance. His gaze stays on me as he answers. “Ciro Marino.”
They write it down, and he gives them a phone number before the officers peel away, their bikes cutting through the crowd. And I spot Massimo outside of the farmer’s market. He doesn’t look at Ciro or acknowledge the police.
He looks at me.
My stomach tightens before I can stop it.
Then he straightens and keeps walking, blending back into the bodies moving away from the market like he was never out of place.
Conversations pick back up in uneven bursts.
Ciro steps close. “You handled that well.” His voice is steady. Close, but not crowding me.
I don’t look at him right away. I’m still watching the direction Massimo disappeared.
“Are you okay?” he asks.
I shift the weight of the canvas bag on my shoulder and finally look at him. “I’m fine. He’s gone.” I paint a smile on my face.
“For now,” Ciro replies. He doesn’t emphasize it. He doesn’t need to. “You shouldn’t walk home alone.” Ciro’s eyes flick to exits.
“I’ll be fine.”
“Maybe not today.”
His eyes move over my shoulder. Instinct makes me follow his line of sight.
Across the market, near the flower stalls, Salvatore stands with his hands in his coat pockets. Still and patient with his gaze locked on me. Salvatore being here isn’t good.
My throat tightens.
“You know him,” Ciro says quietly, still watching Salvatore.
“Yes.”
“Family?”
“Not mine.”
Ciro’s gaze flicks back to me. “And the one who grabbed you?”
I debate telling him, but it doesn’t matter now. “It’s no one.” The words taste bitter. They found me faster than they did last time.
“You told the police you didn’t know him,” Ciro says.
I force myself to meet his eyes. “I don’t. Not in a way that matters.”
Across the street, Salvatore adjusts his stance just enough to make sure I see him without actually moving closer.
I realize I’ve angled my body slightly toward Ciro without thinking about it.
We step away from the center of the market together. The noise dulls as we move toward the side street. Ciro reaches for one of the canvas bags hooked over my arm.
He doesn’t ask permission. He just lifts it from my shoulder, his fingers brushing the inside of my wrist as he takes the weight.
“You don’t have to go anywhere you don’t want to,” he says.
I exhale slowly. “I’m aware.”
He looks at me directly now, not at Salvatore. “Are you?”
Across the street, Salvatore stares at me.
And my pulse, which had started to settle, kicks back up.
“You can come with me,” Ciro says, his gaze still fixed across the street. “I’m starved, and my favorite trattoria isn’t far. Can I buy you a late lunch?”
He doesn’t look at me when he says it. His attention stays on Salvatore, as if the decision has already been calculated.
I tighten my grip on the canvas strap. “You don’t even know me,” I say, keeping my voice level because my pulse isn’t.
Now, he turns his head, finally giving me his full attention.
“We can solve that over lunch,” he replies.
Salvatore follows us to the end of the market.
And I go with Ciro.