Lucia
Nico doesn’t go down easy tonight. Not because he isn’t tired. He’s exhausted. I can see it in the way his words get soft around the edges, the way his eyelids droop and then fight back up stubbornly.
But he’s got questions now. Questions he didn’t have yesterday. Questions he didn’t have these last three years, because I built a world small enough that loud voices couldn’t reach him.
“Why were the men mad?” he asks for the third time, curled under the blankets in a bed too big for him.
“They weren’t mad at you,” I say, smoothing his hair back. My fingers shake even though I’m trying to keep my voice steady.
Nico’s scowl appears, the little crease between his brows like a stamp. “But they were loud.”
I swallow. Because he’s right. Because loud isn’t neutral. Loud is a warning in my body. Loud is Marco slamming cabinets and laughing like it was my fault the air in the room turned sharp. Loud means something is about to happen.
“Turo told them not to yell,” I say carefully.
Nico’s eyes flick up to mine. “He promised.”
“I know,” I whisper.
He touches his ear once, small fingers brushing the spot like he’s checking something. Like he’s remembering. My chest tightens.
“Is Turo… my papa?” he asks, like the word is a puzzle piece he’s been turning over in his hands all day.
Everything in me freezes. My mouth goes dry so fast, it feels like my tongue sticks to my teeth. I don’t want to lie. I don’t want to say yes. I don’t want to say no. Because yes makes it real. And no feels like ripping something out of him when he hasn’t even decided if he wants it yet.
So I do the only thing I’ve learned that works when you’re standing on the edge of something too big.
I buy time.
“Turo is… Nico,” I start, and I hate how my voice wobbles.
His eyes stay on my face, sharp and unfairly perceptive for a three-year-old.
“He’s family,” I finish.
Nico considers that, as solemn as a judge. Then he nods once. As if he’s filed it away. As if he’ll come back to it later.
“Okay,” he says, not in relief or acceptance. It’s decision postponed. A child’s mercy.
I lean down and kiss his forehead. “I’m right here.”
He catches my wrist as I pull back, grip small but strong. “No yelling,” he says.
“I know,” I whisper. “No yelling.”
His fingers loosen. His lashes flutter. His breath deepens.
And I wait. I wait until the tension drains from his body and he sinks into sleep like it finally wins. Only then do I stand. Only then do I let my own breath come out shaky.
Because the second he’s asleep, the fear doesn’t disappear. It just changes shape.
I step out into the hall quietly, closing the door until it clicks. The sound makes my pulse spike. Always. My body never forgets what doors mean.
There are guards posted down the hall. Calm, still, not looking at me like I owe them anything. That should comfort me. It doesn’t. It just reminds me I’m inside someone else’s world. Someone else’s rules. Someone else’s protection.
And I hate how much I need it.
My feet carry me without asking permission. Down the corridor. Past polished art. Past soft light that’s meant to make luxury feel like peace.
I find him in the private sitting room. Not the study, not the war room, not the places built for violence and paper cuts. This room is quieter. Lower ceilings. Softer chairs. A fire that isn’t lit, because even warmth here is controlled.
Turo is sitting on the couch, sleeves rolled up, collar open. There’s a folder in his hands. Court documents.
My stomach twists. Because no matter how velvet the room looks, it’s still a battleground.
His head lifts the second I step in. He doesn’t speak. He watches my face the way he watches threats, like he’s searching for the moment I break and deciding how to catch me if I do.
I close the door behind me. Softly. The click still lands like a period.
“I need to tell you something.” My voice comes out, too careful. Like I’m bracing for impact.
Turo’s gaze drops to the folder once, then he closes it and sets it on the table with deliberate precision. Then he leans back slightly, hands resting open on his knees.
“I’m listening,” he says.
I stand there, arms folded across my middle like I can hold myself in place.
The room smells faintly of leather and wood polish and something sharper underneath. The reality of him.
I swallow hard.
“I… a while ago,” I begin, and my throat tightens. “When Nico started asking questions.”
Turo’s jaw shifts, just once. The only sign he feels anything.
“What questions?” he asks quietly.
I hate that the answer burns. “About his father.”
Silence. Full of everything we didn’t say for three years.
I stare at the floor for half a second because looking at him feels like stepping into a spotlight. Then I force myself to meet his eyes.
“I Googled you,” I admit.
That gets him. Not surprise—he doesn’t seem capable of it—but something sharp flickers behind his gaze, like he didn’t expect me to say it out loud.
“I searched the Mancini family,” I continue. “I found pictures. Articles. Your name.” My chest clenches as I say it, like it’s dangerous just to speak. “And then I saw your face.”
Turo doesn’t move. But something in the room does. The air shifts. His attention becomes a physical thing.
My voice cracks on the next part. “I realized you weren’t… just a man on a plane.”
His eyes hold mine. Unblinking.
I keep going because stopping means falling apart.
“I realized you were the don. I realized you were Marco’s father.”
The words taste like metal. I watch him absorb it. I watch him take it without flinching. I hate that it makes my chest hurt.
“And I chose not to reach out,” I whisper.
Turo’s breath changes. Just a small, controlled inhale that tells me I struck something deep.
“Why?”
I laugh once, sharp and ugly, because the answer is almost too simple.
“Because I was terrified,” I say. “Of dragging Nico into the exact world I escaped.” I wrap my arms around myself.
“I didn’t leave Marco to trade him for a different kind of cage.
I didn’t survive just to hand my son to violence in a nicer suit. ”
Turo’s eyes darken. His gaze drops for the smallest second. To my mouth, to my throat, the place my pulse jumps too visibly. Then back up. Controlled again.
“I didn’t know how to tell you,” I add, voice shaking now. “Because how do you call a man like you and say… here, I made a person with you, surprise. Also, your son’s older brother tried to destroy me?”
His jaw clenches. I can see the muscle working. I can see the restraint layered over whatever rage lives underneath him.
I expect him to snap. To demand. To punish.
Instead, he says quietly, “I looked for you.”
My breath catches. “What?”
His gaze holds mine like it’s an anchor. “I bought the passenger manifest,” he says. “I hired investigators. I found your address.”
The room tilts. Not metaphorically. Physically. Like my balance shifts because my body can’t decide if it should run or collapse.
“You…” My voice breaks. “You knew where I was?”
“Yes,” he says.
My stomach churns hard. “Then why didn’t you…” I stop because my brain can’t even form the sentence without panicking.
Turo’s throat works once. He looks away. Just barely. Like even turning his head takes effort.
“I stood outside,” he says quietly. “With my hand on the buzzer.”
My skin prickles.
“I could have pressed it.”
My heart stutters.
“And I walked away.”
I stare at him, my mouth open and useless. Because I don’t understand. Because part of me is furious. Because what if I needed him and he didn’t come? Because part of me is relieved, because what if he had?
“Why?” I whisper.
His eyes return to mine, and something in them is raw enough that it scares me. “Because showing up uninvited,” he says, voice low, controlled like a confession carved through stone, “would make me my father.”
Silence drops hard and thick. I feel the words in my bones. I swallow. Pain and understanding twist together.
“You chose to let me go,” I say softly.
“You chose to protect our son,” he replies.
The way he says our should not wreck me. It does. Because it turns everything into something shared. Something real.
I shake my head slowly. “We both chose wrong.”
Turo’s gaze doesn’t flinch. “Or we both chose right for that moment.”
I don’t have an answer. My body is full of too much. Exhaustion and fear and the ugly echo of the gala and the way my son’s fingers touched his ear like a mirror of his father.
I step closer without meaning to. Or he does. I’m not sure. All I know is suddenly he’s there, close enough that I can feel heat off him, close enough that the room feels too small for both of our breathing.
His eyes drop to my mouth again. My hand lifts. Touches his wrist. He doesn’t move away. He doesn’t grab. He waits. Like he’s giving me the choice. That alone makes something inside me splinter.
“Lucia,” he says, and my name on his tongue feels like a hand closing around my throat in the best and worst way.
My chest rises too fast. My pulse stutters.
I should step back.
I don’t.
I lean in. I kiss him. It isn’t polite. It isn’t careful. It’s the kind of kiss that happens when you’ve held something back too long and your body decides it’s done asking permission.
His hand comes up fast, cradling my jaw, thumb pressing under my cheekbone like he’s memorizing me again. I gasp into his mouth. He answers with something low and rough, a sound that vibrates through me and makes my knees go weak.
My fingers clutch his shirt. He pulls me closer, and the contact snaps something in my spine.
Heat rushes through my stomach, sharp and dizzying.
I don’t think. I climb into his lap like I’m trying to erase all distance between us.
His hands grip my hips, strong enough to steady me, strong enough to leave marks I’ll feel tomorrow.
“Is this okay?” he murmurs against my mouth, the question wrecking me more than the force.
“Yes,” I breathe. “Yes.”
He kisses me again. Harder. Desperate. Like he’s been suffocating and I’m the first thing that tastes like air.