Chapter Twenty-Three
GIO
Lucia falls asleep halfway through chapter fourteen.
I continue reading until the end of the chapter, mostly because I don’t notice.
Her breathing has evened out beneath the covers. One hand rests near her face, fingers curved against the pillow. Dark hair spills over the white linen, tangled from the number of times she turned before finally settling.
The tension around her mouth has disappeared.
So has the careful crease that forms between her eyebrows whenever she listens for something beyond a locked door.
She looks peaceful.
Younger, too.
Not like Mikhailov’s niece or Marco’s furious new wife. Just a tired woman asleep in a bed she chose.
It’s the first time I’ve seen her that way since she came home.
Since she came home.
The words settle something inside me.
I close the book quietly.
The bedroom lamp casts a pool of amber light over the bed and the pale-blue sweater folded at its foot. Beyond that small circle, the room has gone dark. The open door frames a narrow stretch of empty hallway.
Lucia asked me not to leave.
So I don’t.
I set the book on the nightstand beside her mother’s photograph and settle deeper into the chair.
It isn’t designed for sleeping. The back is too straight, the seat too shallow, and one carved wooden edge has been cutting into my leg for the last hour.
I’ve slept in worse places.
I close my eyes.
Some time later, fingers brush mine.
I open them.
Lucia has moved closer to the edge of the bed. Her arm extends across the space between us, one hand reaching blindly in my direction.
She’s still asleep.
Her fingers find mine.
They close loosely.
I stop breathing.
It means nothing.
A sleeping woman searching for reassurance. Proof that she isn’t alone.
I understand that.
I also know I’ll sit here until my entire arm goes numb rather than pull away.
I turn my hand beneath hers and hold on.
When I wake again, gray morning light has begun creeping beneath the curtains.
My neck aches.
My left leg has lost all sensation.
Lucia is still holding my hand.
Someone stands in the doorway.
Marco.
He wears the same dark suit from the wedding, though his tie is gone and the first two buttons of his shirt are open. The jacket is creased at the elbows, and stubble shadows his jaw.
On anyone else, it would look ordinary.
On Marco, it suggests a complete collapse of civilization.
His gaze drops to our joined hands.
I wait for him to tell me to move.
Nothing comes.
“She asked me to stay,” I whisper.
“I assumed.”
“She didn’t want to be alone.”
“I know.”
I almost tell him he isn’t allowed to say that anymore.
Then I remember Lucia isn’t awake to appreciate it.
Marco looks at her.
We share enough of the same features that people who don’t know us well still mistake us for identical. Standing in the weak morning light, however, he looks nothing like me.
His dark eyes—our mother’s eyes—rest on Lucia with a longing so naked that I have to look away.
“Did she sleep?” he asks.
“Eventually.”
“Any nightmares?”
“Not that I noticed.”
He nods.
A folded packet rests in one of his hands.
“What’s that?”
“Documents from the bank. Everything is ready for her signature.”
“At six in the morning?”
“They arrived yesterday.”
“Of course they did.”
“I’ll leave everything in the study.”
His gaze returns to Lucia.
She shifts beneath the covers, the sheets whispering around her.
Her fingers tighten around mine.
Marco sees.
Something flickers behind his eyes.
Then it disappears.
“You should sleep,” I tell him.
“I have work.”
“You’ve been awake for three days.”
“Two.”
“That isn’t better.”
He turns toward the hall.
“Marco.”
He stops.
“She’s home.”
His back remains to me.
“Yes.”
“That’s something.”
“Not enough.”
No.
It isn’t.
He walks away.
Lucia wakes twenty minutes later.
Her eyes open slowly.
For one moment, she looks confused. Her gaze goes first to the ceiling, then the open door, then me.
“You stayed.”
“You asked me to.”
She glances at our hands.
Her fingers loosen.
“Sorry.”
I hold on for half a second longer before releasing her.
“I’m not.”
Color rises faintly into her cheeks.
She sits up and looks toward the open bedroom door.
“Did anyone come in?”
“No.”
It’s technically true.
Marco remained in the hall.
“Good.”
She twists the wedding ring around her finger.
The movement has already become a habit.
“How do you feel?” I ask.
“Married.”
“That bad?”
She looks at me.
“Worse.”
“Fair.”
I attempt to stand.
My leg collapses beneath me.
I catch myself on the arm of the chair.
Lucia stares.
“What happened?”
“My leg fell asleep.”
A laugh escapes her.
The sound is rough from sleep but unmistakable.
I point at her.
“This is your fault.”
“How?”
“You held my hand hostage.”
“I was asleep.”
“Convenient excuse.”
She pulls the covers more tightly around herself.
“You could have let go.”
“No.”
The answer comes out before I can make it lighter.
Her smile fades.
Not entirely.
The room grows quiet.
I straighten and test my leg.
“You should get dressed. Angela will be waiting with enough breakfast to feed the neighborhood.”
“She’ll make me eat.”
“Yes.”
“Even if I say I’m not hungry?”
“Especially then.”
Lucia looks toward the nightstand.
Morning light catches on the glass covering her mother’s photograph.
“I missed her.”
“Angela?”
She nods.
“All of them.”
I don’t ask whether she missed me.
I want the answer too much.
I leave while she dresses.
When we enter the kitchen half an hour later, the room is already warm from the stove. Coffee and toasted bread scent the air, and butter snaps softly in the frying pan.
Lucia has changed into dark trousers and the pale-blue sweater Angela washed for her. Her hair is pulled into a loose knot, although several long strands have already escaped around her face.
She slows in the doorway.
Angela stands at the stove with one hand on the skillet. She turns.
The relief on her face is quieter than last night but no less powerful.
“Sit.”
Lucia obeys.
I take the chair beside her.
Angela places eggs, toast, and strawberries in front of Lucia.
Her hand stops when she sees the fruit.
Angela notices.
“I can get something else.”
“No.”
Lucia picks up one of the strawberries.
“These are good.”
She takes a bite.
Angela turns back to the stove and wipes one hand across her cheek.
Dario is already at the table with coffee. Armando reads something on his phone. Bruno has brought another pastry box, though he continues to deny responsibility for it.
Sunlight enters through the western windows and falls across the long kitchen table. Lucia’s place has been set between mine and Angela’s, exactly where it was before she left. Her ceramic bowl sits beside the sink, filled with lemons again.
For several minutes, everything feels normal.
Then Marco enters.
The room changes.
It happens without anyone moving very much.
Lucia’s hand stills halfway to her coffee.
Angela turns back to the stove.
Armando puts down his phone.
Marco pauses inside the doorway.
“Good morning.”
No one answers immediately.
Then Dario clears his throat.
“Morning, boss.”
Marco looks at Lucia.
She lowers her gaze.
A place has been set for him at the head of the table.
He doesn’t take it.
“I left several things for you in the study,” he tells her.
“What things?”
“Documents from the bank. The prenuptial agreement. Contact information for three attorneys who have never represented me or anyone in our organization.”
Lucia sets down her coffee.
“You opened bank accounts?”
“No. I prepared the applications. Only you can open the accounts or authorize access.”
“With what money?”
“Your trust made an advance available after the marriage agreement was recorded. Nothing will be transferred until you approve it.”
“You mean after you paid Viktor.”
“No. The money is yours.”
“Everything seems to be mine now that you’ve decided it can be.”
The words strike precisely.
Marco accepts them.
“The account information is in the study.”
“I heard you.”
His gaze remains on her for another moment.
Then he looks at Angela.
“Coffee?”
She points to the pot without turning around.
Marco pours his own.
He leaves without taking breakfast.
Lucia watches the doorway after he disappears.
Her expression contains too many things to name.
Anger.
Pain.
Perhaps something worse because it hasn’t died.
I reach for the pastry box.
“Bruno, did you bring the almond ones?”
He grunts.
“I didn’t bring anything.”
“Then whoever left these has excellent taste.”
The conversation resumes slowly.
Lucia remains quiet.
After breakfast, she walks through the house as though confirming it still exists.
The library first.
She stands just inside the doors for several seconds before crossing to the chair she used near the windows. Her fingers pass over the books stacked on the table, checking their order without seeming to realize she’s doing it.
Then she goes to the study.
She spends nearly an hour examining the documents Marco left for her.
When she returns, she’s carrying a new phone, a set of keys, and several sealed envelopes. She holds everything against her chest as though someone emptied a stranger’s life into her arms and told her it belongs to her now.
“What are those?” I ask.
“Everything.”
She sits beside me on the curved sofa and spreads the documents across the low table.
“Bank applications. Copies of the marriage contract. The deeds to the Rossi properties. A credit card.”
“Good.”
“It’s too much.”
“It belongs to you.”
“That’s what everyone keeps saying.”
She turns the keys over in her hand.
One is for the house.
Another is for a car.
The new brass is bright against her palm. Marco even labeled them with small paper tags in his precise handwriting.
“What am I supposed to do with all of this?”
“Whatever you want.”
She looks at me.
The answer sounds different now.
Dangerous.
Freedom requires decisions, and Lucia has spent most of her life being punished for making them.
“I don’t know what I want.”
“You don’t have to know today.”
“You said that the first time I came here.”
“It remains true.”
Her fingers close around the keys.
“I want to do something normal.”
“Define normal.”