Chapter 14
Insomnia is an acceptable side effect of leadership.
I was analyzing revenue projections from the docks for the next quarter, cross-referencing data with the new tariffs imposed by the union we’d just “persuaded.” The numbers were clear, logical, comforting.
They didn’t lie. They didn’t have hidden agendas.
They didn’t shift personalities based on alcohol content or mood.
Unlike my wife.
I pushed the keyboard away and rubbed my eyes beneath my glasses. Solaia.
Since the dinner with Vitti, the “Solaia” variable had shifted in my equation.
Until yesterday, she was a liability. An expense.
A security risk with pretty legs and no brain.
But the way she worked that table… her fluency in Italian, the subtlety she used to stroke the old Capo’s ego while reinforcing my authority… that wasn’t luck. It was instinct.
She said she grew up in the shark tank. I’d forgotten that to survive in Vittorio D’Angelo’s aquarium, you had to learn to swim or hide very well. She chose to hide behind layers of frivolity.
The apartment’s silence, normally my ally, felt dense tonight.
It pressed against my eardrums. I knew she was in her room—or in the wing she’d mentally claimed.
But her presence leaked through the walls.
The lingering scent of those damned lilies still hung in the living room, battling my air filtration system.
My throat was dry. I stood up from the Herman Miller chair. My muscles protested, stiff after six hours in the same position. I needed water. And, I admitted to myself in the dark, I needed to check the perimeter.
I opened the office door. The hallway was steeped in darkness, except for the city lights filtering through the living room’s panoramic windows, painting the concrete floor with silver streaks and long shadows.
I walked in silence. My bare feet made no sound. I moved through my own home like an intruder, accustomed to going unnoticed.
I reached the entrance to the living room and stopped.
I’d intended to go straight to the kitchen, grab a bottle of water, and return to my bunker. But movement in my peripheral vision caught my attention.
The glass door to the terrace was ajar. Cold October wind drifted in, making the heavy curtains sway. And out there, leaning against the tempered glass railing, was a silhouette.
Solaia.
She shouldn’t be awake. She shouldn’t be out in the cold. My first reaction was irritation. Rule number one: Security. Standing on the balcony at three in the morning was an invitation for a sniper or a surveillance drone.
I took a step forward to go out there and bring her inside, probably with a lecture about visible targets. But then my eyes adjusted to the dimness.
She wasn’t dressed for an audience. No architectural silk dress like earlier tonight.
No provocative nightgown from the library.
No makeup. She wore loose plaid flannel pajama pants and an old white t-shirt two sizes too big for her.
Her hair hung loose, a dark, messy cascade down her back, disheveled by the wind.
She looked… small. Like a child who’d woken up in the middle of the night and realized the house was empty.
I stepped back into the shadow of a structural column. The predator in me took over. Observe before engaging. Collect data.
She wasn’t looking at the city. The million-dollar view, the black lake, the glittering skyscrapers—none of it mattered.
She was looking at something in her hands.
Faint moonlight illuminated the object. A frame.
Small, cheap wood. It didn’t look like something that belonged in this apartment, or in her life of luxury.
She brought her hand to her face. I saw her shoulders tremble.
It wasn’t the hysterical crying from the funeral. It wasn’t the angry crying from when I’d canceled the cards. It was a silent, convulsive tremor. The kind of crying that physically hurts, where the body tries to expel the pain through spasms because there’s no sound big enough to express it.
She clutched the frame against her chest, curving over the glass railing as if trying to protect the photo from the biting wind.
I felt something strange in my chest. A pressure just below the sternum, like an arrhythmia. It was uncomfortable. It was… empathy?
No. I didn’t feel empathy. I understood pain, I processed it, but I didn’t feel it. Feeling is inefficient. But seeing Solaia there, stripped of all her armor—without the sarcasm, without the fashion, without the insolence—hit me with the force of a physical blow.
The “frivolous princess” was a lie. The pink couch, the loud music, the compulsive shopping…
they weren’t the acts of a spoiled girl.
They were noise. They were distractions.
She was filling the silence so she wouldn’t have to hear her own thoughts.
She was drowning, and I’d been complaining that she was getting my carpet wet.
I looked at her hand, white from the cold, holding the photo of her father.
Vittorio D’Angelo was a monster. He’d killed men, ruined lives, and in the end, sold his own daughter.
But to her… to her, he’d been the only pillar.
And now that pillar had crumbled to dust, and she was trying to keep her balance in the middle of an earthquake, alone.
I should go out there. Logic dictated I should go out there. She was cold. Exposed. My hand moved, slipping from my pocket. I took half a step out of the shadows.
She let out a sob. A low, strangled sound that the wind nearly carried away. “Papà...” she whispered. The word broke in half.
I stopped. My hand hovered in the air, useless. If I went out there now... what would I do? I’m not a man who offers hugs. I don’t have words of comfort. My language is violence and logistics. I can kill whoever made her cry, but I can’t kill death.
And if I touched her now, if I saw her so vulnerable and broken... the barrier would fall. The barrier I’d meticulously built—the coldness, the distance, the rules—would dissolve. Because no one can hold on to hatred for someone they’ve seen crying in the dark.
I’d seen her at dinner tonight. Seen the intelligence. Seen the strength. Now I was seeing the wound. And the combination of those things—strength and wound—was dangerous. It made me want to protect her not just because I’d sworn to, but because... she deserved to be free of pain.
I stepped back. Self-preservation won out over the instinct to protect. I couldn’t be the husband she needed right now. I could only be the bodyguard. And bodyguards don’t wipe away tears; they secure the perimeter so the crying can happen.
But I couldn’t leave her out there, freezing.
I turned and went silently to the kitchen. Opened the cabinet. Grabbed a glass. Filled it with filtered water, room temperature.
I returned to the living room. Solaia was still out there, lost in her one-sided conversation with the dead. I set the glass on the coffee table, near the balcony entrance. Right in the line of sight of anyone coming in.
I looked at the sofa. One of those ridiculous faux fur throws she’d bought was draped there. White and fluffy. I picked it up. Hesitated. If I covered her, she’d know I saw her crying. She’d feel exposed. The shame would make her raise her walls again tomorrow. She needed the dignity of solitude.
I folded the throw and left it on the arm of the sofa, also visible. An invitation, not an imposition.
I looked at her one last time. The wind stirred her hair, covering her face. “Goodnight, Sol,” I whispered, without sound.
I retreated into the shadows of the hallway. My steps were heavy. Not from exhaustion, but from the weight of revelation.
I entered the office and closed the door, but didn’t lock it. Sat down in the chair. The screens still glowed with dock numbers. But the numbers didn’t make sense anymore. All I could see was the curve of her shoulders under that oversized t-shirt.
I’d thought the task would be protecting her body from enemies. Now I realized the real battle would be protecting her mind from loneliness. And, God help me, protecting my own from the inevitability of caring.
I turned off the monitors. Sat in the dark, listening to the silence of the house. This time, the silence didn’t feel empty. It felt like a held breath, waiting for dawn.