Chapter 39
Chapter Thirty Nine
Luca
I watch her take the stairs like she’s outrunning something. She doesn’t look back. The banister takes the brush of her fingers at the turn, and then she’s gone.
I want to follow. I don’t.
Caterina is at my elbow, breath steadying, face pale under the calm. I put a hand on her shoulder; she leans into it for one beat, then straightens.
“You hurt?” I ask.
She shakes her head. “No.”
“Dizzy? Ringing in your ears?” I scan her anyway, pupils fine, stance square.
“I’m fine, Papà,” she says, voice a notch hoarse. “Elena—”
“I know.” I force my hand to drop. “Go get water. Sit for five minutes. I’ll send someone to look at that scrape on your wrist.”
She glances down like she hadn’t felt it. A thin line where brick kissed skin. That small line is reason enough to kill them all.
“Okay.”
Nico steps through the door behind them and closes it softly with his foot, already calculating. His jacket is open, his eyes are moving, securing entrances in his mind.
“Report,” I say.
“Two shooters,” he answers. “Primary from the second-floor east window, three units in from the alley mouth. Secondary on the roofline above the same building, likely a spotter who took a chance when we moved. We broke line of sight fast enough, the second didn’t track. No injuries on our side.”
“Witnesses?” I ask.
“Plenty,” he says. “Sal and Marc stayed to scrub what they could—cash to the manager, friendly words with the host, a few numbers collected for follow-up.”
I nod once. “Weapons?”
“First is quality,” Nico says. “Glass was tight on the window. Probable suppressor. Second was sloppy—handgun, long angle, poor control. They were there for her, not to make a statement. They wanted it done.”
My jaw sets. “They failed.”
“They’ll try again,” he says, plain.
I know. I feel the knowing settle in my bones.
I lower my voice. “Vito?”
“Off the grid,” Nico says. “He took Giovanni and two men. You want me on him or on the house?”
“On the house,” I say, already pulling my phone. “Check in with him every hour.”
“Understood.” He tips his chin toward the stairs. “She okay?”
“She will be.” I start to turn, then point at Caterina. “Sit. Water.”
She rolls her eyes like she’s fifteen and does both immediately, sinking to the bench with a glass someone places in her hand.
“Nico,” I say, “touch base with Vito on Akers. Then sweep the house again. I don’t care how many times it’s been done today—we do it again.”
“On it,” he says, already moving, voice going low as he keys his mic.
I’m done waiting. I take the stairs two at a time and force myself to slow at the landing so I don’t barrel into her like a storm. The corridor is long and quiet. The door to the nursery is closed.
I knock softly, then open it and pause on the threshold.
She’s in the rocking chair we had delivered two days ago, the one Caterina found—solid, quiet, wide enough for both a mother and a baby.
She’s small in it now: shoulders curled, hands tented over the swell that’s barely there, yet somehow everything.
The room is bare otherwise. A notebook sits on the table where she’s been drawing boxes and writing lists. The afternoon light is unwelcome.
She looks up when she feels me there, eyes rimmed, jaw set. “I said I needed time.”
“You did,” I say, stepping in. “And I heard you.”
“Then why are you here?” She isn’t sharp; she’s sanded down.
“Because I’m not leaving you alone right now,” I answer. “You’ll have to deal with it.”
She swallows, and the angry tears finally break. Her face goes wet and furious, hands shaking. “I want to be alone.”
“I’m not leaving,” I say softly. “You’ll hate me for it. That’s fine. I can take it.”
“Why?” It’s a child’s question, but it deserves an honest answer.
“Because you were almost shot in the face thirty minutes ago,” I say. “Because the baby is inside you.” I tap my chest once. “Because you are mine and I am not going to stand in a hallway and listen to you come apart through a damn door.”
She lets out a sound that is half laugh, half anger, and everything pain. “You can’t will me better.”
“I’m not trying to.” I take a step closer, not too near. “But I won’t let you deal with this alone.”
Her eyes flash and tear at the same time. “I can’t even go to lunch,” she whispers furiously. “I can’t buy tiny clothes without a man telling me to get down on the floor.”
“I know,” I say.
“No, you don’t,” she snaps, voice pitching higher.
“You always have people. You have a system. You have men. I had… I had a salad and a fish and a window and then a door spitting paint at my face and a man pulling me by the elbow. I had my hands on the ground in an alley with God knows what on it and my belly in the way and—” She breaks, breath hitching, then barrels on.
“And all our things are scattered all over that damn restaurant. The little sleeper. The cardigan. The… the stupid nursing bra, Luca.” Her mouth twists.
“Everything we bought. It’s all just—lying on a floor like it never mattered. ”
“We’ll get them back,” I say. “Or I’ll buy the store.”
“That’s not the point,” she throws back, voice rising.
“It’s not about a onesie. It’s that I can’t do a normal thing.
I can’t sit in the sun at a café. I can’t be a woman who has lunch with someone she might finally get to call family and talk about crib sheets and be a person.
Is this it? Is this my life? Sitting inside, head down? ”
“It isn’t,” I say immediately. “Not forever.”
“When?” she demands. “When the baby is one? Five? When they decide they’re bored trying to kill me? When you decide you’re bored of—of—” She waves an arm because even she realizes there’s no good word for what she wants to say.
I understand anyway.
“That will never happen, Elena,” I tell her evenly. “There will never be a ‘bored of.’”
She snorts, a tear spilling over her cheek. “You say that now.”
“I’ll say it tomorrow,” I answer. “And in ten years, twenty. And when we’re old and you’re yelling at me about crumbed biscotti in the bed.”
Her mouth jerks, angry and unsure. “How can you be so sure?”
“Because I love you,” I say.
The room goes very still. Even the house seems to step back a pace.
I don’t dress it up, and I don’t rush to fill the space after. I let it be what it is. “I’m not a man who throws that word around,” I add calmly. “I’ve only ever said it to one other woman in my life. And now I’m saying it to you.”
She stares at me like she’s waiting for the trick. When it doesn’t come, something fragile flashes across her face, and then she smothers it with stubbornness. “You love me,” she repeats, testing the words in her mouth.
“I do.”
Her eyes shine, anger? “You love a woman who tried to get you thrown back in prison? Who stood on the opposite side of a courtroom?”
“I love the woman who stood up to me,” I say. “Who did her job even when I made it hard. Who still believes there’s a right way to do things in a world that keeps rewarding the wrong ones. Who’s carrying my child and still thinks about other people first.” I take a step closer, slow.
She looks down at her shaking hands and clenches them into fists. “I can’t promise you I won’t break under this,” she says, ragged. “I don’t… I don’t know how to be the person you need and still be me.”
“You being you is the entire point,” I tell her. “I don’t want a different version of you. I want the woman who stood opposite me in court. The woman who can’t cook worth a damn but treasures her mother’s recipe box more than anything. The woman who loves those disgusting double-shot lattes.”
She lets out a watery laugh.
She pushes up out of the chair, palms skimming her thighs as if she needs the feel of her own body to steady herself. We’re close now, not touching. Her chin tips up; the stubbornness is still there, but her eyes are softer.
“I hate that I want you here,” she says. “I hate that I need you here.”
“You can hate it,” I say. “I’ll still be here.”
She studies my face like a witness she’s not sure she should put on the stand. Then she steps into me and sets her hands flat on my chest. I don’t move. I let her set the pace.
“I don’t know how to do this,” she says, voice low. “I don’t know how to be brave and terrified at the same time. I don’t know how to be a lawyer who wants the rule of law and a woman who wants—” She presses her lips together, frustrated tears threatening again. “You.”
“Then want me,” I say softly. “The rest we sort.”
She breathes, and I feel it through my shirt. Her fingers curl, bunching the material. She looks up, and all the fight in her eyes has left.
“I love you,” she says.
It’s barely more than a breath, but it lands in my gut like a swift kick.
She swallows and says it again, stronger. “I love you.”
I exhale, slowly, because anything louder will break the moment. “Say it again,” I murmur.
Her lips lift—exasperated, fond. “I love you,” she repeats, and the third is a promise.
I cover her hands with mine, holding her to me, not trapping—anchoring. “Thank you,” I say. “For trusting me with that.”
“It terrifies me,” she admits.
“Me too,” I say. “Good. That means it’s real.”
She huffs, cheeks wet, and finally not fighting it. I thumb away a tear with the back of a knuckle, careful. She lets me.
“Come here,” I say and fold her against me. Her lips mold to mine perfectly, and she rises on her toes, fingers fisting my shirt. I brace a hand at the small of her back and feel the last of the tremor leave her shoulders.
It’s not long and it’s not gentle, but it’s careful. When I break away, I press my forehead to hers and just breathe with her.
“I’m not going anywhere,” I say.
“I know.” She swallows, eyes closing once, opening again. “I just—”
“I’ve got you,” I say, and I mean the words in every way.