Chapter 4 Isabella
Two days.
The stranger has been here for two days, and I still don't know his name.
I stand at the kitchen sink, washing the breakfast dishes and staring out at the barn. The door is closed, just like I left it an hour ago when I brought him bread and water. He was awake then, sitting up against the hay bales, looking less gray than yesterday but still terrible.
Still nameless.
"Mama, can I have more juice?"
I turn to find Elena at the table, swinging her legs, her cup empty. "You've had two cups already, baby. Water now."
"But I want juice."
"Water," I repeat, filling her cup from the tap.
She takes it with a dramatic sigh that would be funny if I wasn't so exhausted. I've barely slept since I found him. Every sound makes me jump. Every creak of the old house makes me wonder if he's gotten out of the barn, if he's coming for us, if I've made a terrible mistake.
"Mama, what's the man's name?"
I close my eyes briefly. She's asked this question at least twenty times since yesterday. "I told you, baby. I don't know his name."
"Why not?"
"Because he doesn't remember."
"Why doesn't he remember?"
"Because he hurt his head."
"How did he hurt it?"
"Elena." I try to keep the frustration out of my voice. "I don't know, okay? Now finish your water and go play."
She slides off her chair, leaving the cup half-full on the table. "Can I go see him?"
"Absolutely not."
"But why?"
"Because I said so." I soften my tone when I see her bottom lip tremble. "He's resting. He needs quiet time to get better. Like in a hospital."
"I'll be quiet."
"Elena, no. Stay away from the barn. I mean it."
She crosses her arms, exactly the way I do when I'm frustrated, and stomps toward her room. A moment later, I hear her playing with her blocks, narrating an elaborate story to her stuffed rabbit.
I lean against the counter and pull out my phone.
For the hundredth time, I open the browser and begin searching. Missing person Tuscany. Missing man Florence. Car accident Tuscany.
Nothing.
Or rather, nothing that matches him. There's an elderly man with dementia who wandered from home. A teenage girl in Siena. A car accident near Pisa, but the victims were all accounted for.
No mention of a dark-haired man in his thirties, handsome, expensive clothes.
I try different searches. Unidentified man found. Assault victim. Even mafia activity Tuscany.
That last one makes my stomach clench. The results are mostly old news articles, nothing recent. Nothing about missing men or violent attacks in the area.
Which means either no one's reported him missing, or whoever's looking for him isn't going through official channels.
I remember the way he looked when I found him. The brutality of his injuries. The expensive clothes with no identification. The complete absence of anything—wallet, phone, keys—that might identify him.
Someone stripped him clean before they left him for dead.
Or he stripped himself.
But why would he do that?
Unless he was running from something.
I close the browser and set my phone down, my hands shaking slightly. Every instinct I have says this man is dangerous. That he's connected to the world I ran from. That keeping him here is going to get us killed.
But I can't throw him out.
Not yet. He can barely walk. And despite everything, despite the fear, there's something in his eyes that I recognize.
Confusion. Pain. The desperate need to understand what's happening.
I saw the same thing in my mirror eighteen months ago when I left Draco.
The radio on the counter is tuned to the local station. I've kept it on constantly, listening for any news. Now the broadcaster is reading the afternoon headlines, a political scandal in Rome, a festival in Florence, traffic delays on the A1.
Nothing about a missing man.
I should be relieved. Instead, the silence feels ominous.
I make myself move, wiping down the already-clean counter, folding the dish towel, anything to keep my hands busy.
Through the window, I can see the barn. Still closed. Still quiet.
He was stronger this morning. Not strong, but better. He managed to eat half the bread I brought, drank all the water. Asked me again about a hospital, and I gave him the same non-answer.
"I’m sorry, I can’t take you to the hospital."
He didn't push. Just watched me with that one good eye, the other still swollen shut, like he was trying to figure me out.
I don't blame him. I'm trying to figure me out too.
Why am I doing this? Why am I risking everything for a stranger who might be exactly the kind of man I'm hiding from?
Because he needed help, I told him. But that's not the whole truth.
The whole truth is that when I found him broken and bleeding in my olive grove, I saw myself. I saw what would have happened if my father hadn't helped me. If someone hadn't taken a risk on me when I was desperate and alone.
Maybe I'm paying it forward.
Or maybe I'm just stupid, like I told him.
Elena's voice drifts from her room, singing a song she learned from a cartoon. She sounds happy. Safe. That's all that matters.
I need to get back to work. There's weeding to do in the vegetable garden, figs to pick before they rot on the tree, a fence post that's been leaning for a week. But I can't seem to make myself do it.
Instead, I keep staring at the barn and wonder who he is.
By evening, I've managed to get some work done. The garden is weeded, the figs are picked and sitting in a bowl on the counter, and I've temporarily propped up the fence post with a stake. It won't hold through winter, but it'll do for now.
Elena helped me with the figs, eating more than she picked, her hands and face sticky with juice. Now she's supposedly taking a quiet rest in her room while I make dinner.
I'm chopping vegetables for soup—onions, carrots, the last of the potatoes—when I realize the house is too quiet.
"Elena?" I call.
No answer.
I set down the knife and walk to her room. Empty. The bed is unmade, her stuffed rabbit gone too.
"Elena?" Louder now, an edge of panic in my voice.
I check the bathroom. My room. The tiny sitting area. Nothing.
The front door is closed but unlocked. I yank it open and step outside, my heart pounding.
"Elena!"
The yard is empty. The chickens peck at the dirt, undisturbed. The olive grove is quiet in the fading light.
And the locked barn door is now wide open.
I run.