Quinn
I wake up alone. The bed beside me is empty and cool, which means he's been up for a while. A few weeks ago, that would have sent me straight into a spiral, my mind running with thoughts like: what did I do? Is he angry? Now I just roll over and reach for the glass of water on the nightstand and see that there’s a note under it.
Meeting at eight. I’ll be back by noon. Don't let Valentina talk you into anything.
I read it twice, then I smile at the ceiling like an idiot and reach for my book. I’ll read for a bit before I get ready and go for breakfast.
The kitchen smells incredible when I get downstairs.
Vittoria is at the counter with flour on her hands and Matteo in the bouncy chair beside her, watching with an intense focus. He seems utterly fascinated by what his mom is doing.
Vittoria looks up when I come in. "Good morning," she says. "Come here, I need another pair of hands."
"Good morning to you too," I say, and pour myself a cup of coffee and come to stand beside her. "What are we making?"
"Focaccia," she says. "Joe's recipe. He thinks I don't know he adds rosemary to the oil, and I've been pretending not to know because it makes him happy."
I look at the dough on the counter. "What do you need me to do?"
"Knead that while I start the oil."
I start kneading. It's oddly satisfying. I’m able to release all my thoughts and just focus on this. It’s nice, easy, and something I would like to learn more about.
"Lorenzo was up at seven," Vittoria says, not looking up from the stove.
"He left a note," I tell her.
"He had a meeting with Cesare and Ciro." She glances at me. "And Tempest."
My heart stammers. "About what happened last night?"
"I assume so, but I don’t know the details. Cesare never involves me in them." She watches me carefully. "Are you alright?"
"Yes," I say, as I continue to knead the dough, but then shake my head. "I'm not sure. Daire being gone is..." I hesitate, unsure what to say. "It's almost worse, when she was sending messages. I at least knew where she was. Now I don't know where she is or what she's planning and that's—"
"Harder to defend against," Vittoria says.
"Yes."
She nods like she understands that kind of anxiety, the not-knowing, and the waiting.
We work in comfortable silence for a few minutes. "Tell me something about Lorenzo," I say. "I don't know much about him."
Vittoria laughs. "I haven't been here long, Quinn. I don’t really know what I could tell you that you don’t already know."
"Anything,” I plead, wanting to learn more about my husband. “What you've heard?"
Vittoria laughs softly as she pours oil into a bowl. "Oh, I know one."
I immediately look up. "One that won't get me murdered?"
She grins at me. "No promises." She leans against the counter and thinks for a moment. "When Lorenzo was thirteen, he disappeared for three days."
I blink. "What?" I gasp, horrified.
"Uh-huh."
"Lorenzo? He disappeared?"
"The very same."
I stare at her. My husband schedules meetings weeks in advance and leaves notes if he's going to be gone for four hours. The idea of him disappearing anywhere feels weird and so very much unlike him.
"What happened?"
"No one knew where he'd gone. Cesare was furious. Ciro and Marco spent two days searching for him."
I'm in disbelief. "Where was he?"
Vittoria's smile widens. "He found an injured dog."
I stop kneading. "A dog?"
"A very ugly dog," she says. "Missing half an ear, one eye, and apparently the worst attitude anyone had ever encountered."
I laugh. "No."
"Yes."
"You're making this up."
She shakes her head, her eyes filled with tears from laughing. "I'm not." She points the wooden spoon at me. "He found it on the edge of one of the family's properties. It had been hit by a car."
"And he disappeared because of a dog?"
"He took it to an old caretaker's cottage and stayed there looking after it."
I stare at her, shocked to my core. It doesn’t seem like him at all.
"Apparently he was feeding it scraps of steak and sleeping on the floor beside it."
My jaw drops. "You're lying."
"That's what I’ve been told."
I can’t contain my laughter. "What happened when they found him?"
"Oh, Cesare lost his mind."
I grin. "I would have paid money to see that."
Her smile is so wide, it’s beaming. "So would I."
"What happened to the dog?"
"It lived." Something warm settles in my chest knowing that he saved the dog. "He tried to convince his father to let him keep it," Vittoria says, laughing.
I nearly choke on my coffee. "He what?"
Vittoria nods. "Apparently, he argued for two hours."
"What did Cesare say?"
She looks at me like I’m crazy. "No."
I sigh. That sounds like Cesare. "Of course he did."
"Then Lorenzo stopped speaking to him for two weeks."
I laugh so hard my stomach hurts. "Oh my God."
"Lorenzo has a soft spot underneath all that hardness,” she tells me softly.
I look at her as silence spreads between us.
I know he does, he’s one of the sweetest people ever.
I look down at the dough beneath my hands and smile.
He’s a protector, he’s made me safe and I imagine a thirteen-year-old Lorenzo Mariano sleeping on a floor beside an injured dog.
Nobody would ever believe it, but that’s because they don’t know him.
I do, and he’s more than a protector, more than a man who does things I may not agree with. He’s my husband, the man that I love.
Oh, shit. I love him?
The dough slips through my fingers. I blink, as though that’ll help make my thoughts disappear, but nope, I still feel it, I know it deep in my soul.
I love him, and it’s not because he protects me, or because he's my husband and he makes me feel safe.
I love him because he's Lorenzo, because he leaves notes for me when he leaves before I’m awake, because he remembers how I take my coffee, and he reads over my shoulder when I'm pretending not to notice. I love him because of all of those things.
"Oh no."
Vittoria looks up immediately, her gaze roaming my face. "What?"
I stare at her, and I see her brows furrow, but then her eyes widen as though she can sense what I’m feeling. I watch as a slow smile spreads across her face. "Oh," she says with glee.
I point at her, my fingers covered in dough. "Don't."
The smile gets bigger. "Quinn," she says in a sing-song voice.
"Don't," I say through clenched teeth.
"You love him."
I drop my head into my hands. "Please stop talking."
Vittoria starts laughing, and somehow that makes it so much worse.
I go back to kneading, all the while she’s laughing her head off like a crazy person. Thankfully, we switch topics of conversation as she shows me what to do next with the dough.
Once it’s proofing, we sit down and have a coffee. "What was he like after his mother died?" I ask, softly.
Vittoria is quiet for a moment. "I didn't know her. But from what Cesare has said, and what the girls have told me, he became colder. He didn’t grieve like the others. Valentina cried for months. Sofia got angry." She takes a sip of coffee. "Lorenzo just became quieter and closed off."
"And Cesare?"
"Cesare also went colder," she says. "Lorenzo channels his feelings inward, whereas Cesare channels it outward." She glances at me. "I think that's why they understand each other, they process the same way."
"Can I ask you something?" I ask.
"Of course."
"Vittoria. Your father..." I stop and take a deep breath, wondering if I’m overstepping? "Lorenzo said..."
"He told you?" She says, simply.
"He mentioned it, but I don't know the details."
"My father beat me," she says. “Regularly and for years." She looks at the table. "I spent most of my childhood and early adulthood learning how to make myself small enough that I didn't draw his attention."
My breath catches in my lungs. "I know what that looks like," I say quietly.
She looks up at me, her eyes shining with unshed tears. "I know you do."
"You seem so..." I pause. "You seem untouchable. Like nothing could shake you."
"Now," she says, with a small smile. "Fear was there for a long time. I was so conditioned by it that I didn't know what I looked like from the outside until Cesare told me. He said I kept everything inside me because I was scared my words would trigger violence."
My heart speeds up. That’s what I felt for a long time, and even now I can sometimes feel myself weighing what I should say. Not because I fear people here in our home, but because it’s instinctive.
"What changed?" I ask.
She almost smiles. "Cesare."
"What did he do?"
She looks out the window for a moment. "My father put me in the hospital," she says.
"He beat me until I was unconscious. I was at lunch with my mom, and I went to the bathroom, and he was waiting for me.
" She turns back to me, and I can see the pain in her eyes.
“Cesare received the call that I had been harmed and came to the hospital. He had the surveillance tapes from the restaurant and saw my father.”
I wait for her to finish. I can’t imagine how badly she must have been harmed. God, her Dad sounds worse than my own.
"He left my father paralyzed," she says. "He didn't ask me how I felt about it," she says. "He didn't make me decide. He just decided what needed to be done. He loved me, and someone had hurt me. He wouldn’t let that slide. Men in our world don’t take kindly to their women or family being harmed."
She watches me for a moment before she speaks again. "Your father pushed you into the mirror on your wedding day. Lorenzo found out and went to your parents and handled it."
"I know."
"Did it make you angry?"
I think about that honestly. "A little," I say. "At first, because I didn’t want them to be hurt, they’re my parents.”
She nods, understanding. "And then?"
I breathe. "And then I thought about how he did it. He never told me and had my brothers not, I don’t think he would have." I look at my hands. "He protected me in the only way he knows how."
"That's a Mariano," she says. "When they decide someone belongs to them, that's it. They'll protect you with their dying breath."