Chapter 11
CHAPTER ELEVEN
Kristen
The car rolls to a stop outside my building, and I grab my bag before Dante can come around to open my door.
"Thanks for the ride." I manage a smile that feels stretched too thin across my face.
Dante gives me a single nod.
I slip out of the car and shut the door behind me, already dreading the climb ahead. Our elevator has been broken since we moved in eight months ago. The super keeps promising to fix it. The super is a liar.
Three flights of stairs in shoes that pinch my toes. Fantastic.
I push through the building's front door—the lock has been busted for weeks, another thing the super ignores—and start climbing. The difference between this building and the Sartori mansion is obvious of course.
Don't think about the marble floors. Don't think about the chandeliers. Don't think about—
Nico's face. The way he stood there in the kitchen doorway, watching me make a complete fool of myself.
I grip the railing tighter and take the stairs faster.
After he caught me singing, I didn't speak to anyone for the rest of my shift. Not really. Yes, ma'am. No, ma'am. Of course, I'll handle that. I made myself small, quiet, invisible. A ghost drifting through rooms.
I'm good at being invisible. Years with Jack taught me that skill.
You were singing. Dancing. With a feather duster.
My face burns even now, hours later. The memory plays on loop like some kind of personal torture device.
He didn't say a word. Just... looked at me. Then he walked away.
He was angry. He has to be angry.
I reach the third floor landing, slightly winded. My legs ache. Tomorrow, they'll ache worse. And the day after that. Two months of this. Sixty-ish days of climbing stairs and avoiding eye contact with Nico Sartori.
I can do this. I've survived worse.
Have you, though?
My key sticks in the lock and I have to jiggle it three times before the door swings open.
"MOMMY!"
Lily launches herself at my legs before I'm fully inside. I drop my bag and scoop her up, burying my nose in her hair. She smells like strawberry shampoo and the grape juice my mother always lets her have too much of.
"Hey, baby girl." I squeeze her tight, letting some of the day's tension drain away. "Were you good for Grandma?"
"I was the goodest." Lily pulls back to look at me. "We watched cartoons and I only spilled juice one time and it was a small spill, Mommy, really small."
"One time is pretty good."
Lily tugs at my hand, pulling me toward the kitchen. "What's in the bag? Is it food? It smells yummy."
The bag. Right.
I'd almost forgotten about the container Giulia pressed into my hands before I left. She'd caught me at the door, her weathered face set in that expression that doesn't accept arguments.
"You take food home every day," she'd said, pushing a heavy container into my arms. "We cook for many people. There's always extra. For you and the little one."
I'd tried to refuse. Jack hated when I accepted anything from anyone. Said it made us look weak, made him look like he couldn't provide.
"Every day," Giulia repeated. "You hear me? Every day."
So here I am, unpacking enough lasagna to feed us for two days, plus garlic bread and some kind of chocolate dessert that makes Lily's eyes go wide.
"Is that cake?"
"I think so." I peer at it. Definitely cake. Fancy cake. The kind with layers and what looks like real chocolate shavings on top. "We can have some after dinner."
"Dinner and cake?" Lily clasps her hands together like I've just promised her a pony. "This is the best day ever!"
I laugh and start plating the lasagna.
The bathroom door opens and my mother appears, smoothing down her blouse. Her eyes sweep over the food spread across the counter and her lips thin almost imperceptibly.
"That's quite a lot of food."
"They sent it home with me." I keep my voice light. "Want to stay for dinner? There's plenty."
"I can't." She's already reaching for her purse on the kitchen chair. "I have things to do at home."
Things being her nightly glass of wine and whatever true crime show she's currently binging. But I don't say that. I never say that.
"How was the first day?" She asks the question while checking her phone, not quite looking at me.
"Good, actually." The words come out before I can overthink them. "Really good."
Now she looks up. Studies my face like she's searching for the lie. "Good?"
"Yeah." I shrug, turning back to plate Lily's portion. "The family's nice. The work is straightforward. I think I'm going to like it there."
I don't mention the singing incident.
"Well." Mom hoists her purse onto her shoulder. "That's something, at least."
High praise from her.
She kisses Lily's head on her way out, murmuring something about being good for Mommy. The door clicks shut behind her, and the apartment feels both emptier and lighter at the same time.
"Come on, baby girl." I carry our plates to the tiny table by the window. "Let's eat this fancy food."
Lily scrambles into her chair, bouncing with excitement. "It smells SO good, Mommy."
It does. The lasagna is still warm, layers of pasta and meat and cheese. I take my first bite and have to stop myself from moaning.
This is what rich people eat every day. No wonder they all look so smug.
"Mommy, this is the best pasta EVER."
"It really is." I wipe a spot of sauce from her chin. "A nice lady named Giulia made it."
Giulia, who spent most of today showing me the ropes while dropping little pieces of information about the family. Who sleeps where. Who likes their coffee how. Which rooms to avoid and when.
And other things too. Things that made the Sartoris seem almost... human.
"Signora Aria and Miss Vittoria," Giulia had said while we inventoried the pantry, "they cannot stand to see someone go hungry. It's like a sickness with them. Every person who works in this house eats. No exceptions."
I'd nodded, still feeling awkward about the whole food situation.
"Once a week, we cook for the shelter downtown. Big pots of soup, fresh bread, whatever we can make." Giulia had paused then, giving me a sharp look. "But you don't mention this. Not to anyone. Especially not to Miss Vittoria."
"Why not?"
"She has ideas about charity. She says when rich people make big show of helping poor people, it's not really helping. It's... what's the word... performance. She doesn't want to perform. She just wants to feed people."
That had stuck with me. The whole drive home, I kept turning it over in my head.
Vittoria Sartori, with her designer clothes and casual wealth, sneaking off to cook for homeless people. Not posting about it. Not telling anyone. Just... doing it.
I think about the women I knew in Jack's circle. The charity events where everyone wore their best jewelry and wrote checks while being photographed. The Instagram posts about "giving back" that were really just excuses to show off expensive outfits.
This is different.
Vittoria doesn't want credit. She wants to help.
I liked her before, with her easy warmth and the way she made me feel less like an intruder. But knowing this? Knowing she feeds people in secret because she thinks anything else would cheapen it?
I like her more now. A lot more.
"Mommy?" Lily's voice pulls me back. "You're not eating."
"Sorry, baby." I take another bite of lasagna. "Just thinking."
"About what?"
About how the people I expected to be arrogant rich people might actually be decent human beings. About how confusing that is.
"About how lucky we are to have such yummy food."
Lily accepts this answer with the easy trust of a four-year-old. "Can we have cake now?"
"I guess you can have cake baby, yes."
Lily cheers, and I cut her a small slice of the chocolate monstrosity Giulia packed. She digs in with enthusiasm, getting frosting on her nose within seconds.
I watch her eat, this tiny perfect person I somehow made.
How lucky am I?
Nico
Sleep isn't coming tonight. Hasn't come properly in weeks, if I'm honest. My brain refuses to shut down, cycling through shipping manifests, supplier discrepancies, and the weight of everything sitting on Pietro's shoulders that he pretends isn't crushing him.
Three in the morning. The compound is silent except for the occasional creak of the old house settling into itself. No gunshots in the distance. No urgent phone calls. No blood to clean up.
Things have been quiet. Too quiet, maybe.
I throw off the covers and pad barefoot to my desk. The whiskey bottle calls to me, but I ignore it. Last night's hangover taught me that lesson well enough.
Instead, I open my laptop.
Kristen Thomas's file glows on the screen. I've read it six times already. No criminal record. No suspicious associations. Just a woman trying to survive.
But something doesn't add up.
I scroll to the financial section. Liam's team is thorough. Bank statements, credit reports, the works. Kristen's account shows a pattern: money comes in from her various jobs, money goes out for rent, utilities, groceries. Standard struggling single mother stuff.
Except for one thing.
Every month, like clockwork, fifteen hundred dollars transfers to an account belonging to Jack Walker. Her estranged husband.
Not to a bank. Not to a medical facility. To him.
I pull up the loan documents Liam dug up. One hundred thousand dollars, supposedly for Lily's heart surgery. The loan is in Kristen's name. The money deposited into her account three years ago.
But she's paying Jack.
Why would she pay her husband for a loan in her own name?
My fingers tap against the desk. The pattern recognition that keeps me alive in this business is screaming that something's wrong here. Normal people might assume she's just paying back money he fronted. That he took the loan out for her and she's repaying him.
I'm not normal people.