19. Laney
LANEY
I saw Nate through the window before he reached the door.
He looked like he always did — jeans, a faded university hoodie, coffee in one hand. But his shoulders were tight and his eyes kept darting to the street behind him. Something was wrong. I opened the door before he could knock.
"Laney." He didn't smile.
My stomach dropped. "What happened?"
"Can I come in?"
I stepped back and let him through. Sofia was at Professor Benedetti's apartment two floors up for the afternoon, playing with his granddaughter.
The flat was quiet except for the sound of traffic from the street below and the faint smell of espresso from the café on the corner.
I led Nate to the kitchen table and waited. My heart was already hammering.
He set the coffee down and rubbed both hands over his face. When he dropped them he looked older than he had yesterday. "Massimo's in Rome."
God. I gripped the back of the chair so hard my knuckles went white. "When?"
"I don't know when he got here." Nate rubbed a hand over his jaw, the same nervous gesture he'd had since university. "But I found out this morning."
My pulse quickened. The room felt smaller. "How?"
"He found me first."
The words landed like a blow. I stared at Nate, trying to piece it together, trying to make sense of what he was telling me. My brain felt slow. "What do you mean, he found you?"
Nate looked down at the table. His hands were flat against the wood. "I was at the archives. Early, before they opened. I wanted to get there ahead of the crowd. Massimo was waiting outside when I came up the street."
"Did he —" My throat tightened. I couldn't get the rest of the question out.
"What did he do?" Nate finished for me. He met my eyes. "He put his hands on me."
I couldn't breathe. "Nate."
"He's not going to hurt me, Laney. He just wanted to make sure I understood.
" Nate's voice was steady, but his hands were still flat on the table like he was holding himself in place.
Like if he let go he might start shaking.
"He didn't hit me. He grabbed my shoulder, got close enough I could feel it, and told me to stay away from you.
He said I didn't belong anywhere near you and that if he saw me again he wouldn't be as patient. "
I wanted to sit down but my legs wouldn't bend. I was frozen there, standing behind the chair, trying to take it in. "Did he threaten you?"
"Not exactly." Nate shook his head. "It wasn't what he said. It was the way he said it. Like he was keeping himself in check and I should be grateful for it. Like the fact that he was talking instead of — I don't know. Something worse."
Tightness spread through my chest. That was Massimo. Controlled. Deliberate. Never losing his temper because he didn't need to — the threat was in everything he didn't do. In the restraint itself.
"Are you hurt?" I scanned him again, looking for what I'd missed. A bruise. A cut. Something that would make this real.
"No." Nate stood and pushed his chair back. The legs scraped against the tile. "I'm fine. But I needed you to know he's here, and that he came looking for me. I don't know what he's planning, but he didn't come to Rome to sightsee."
"Okay." I wrapped my arms around myself. My hands felt cold. "Thank you for telling me."
Nate hesitated, like he wanted to say something else, then thought better of it. He crossed to the door and I followed him. When he turned back his expression was careful. Worried. "You don't have to answer this. But are you okay? Really?"
"I don't know."
He nodded slowly. "Call me if you need anything. I mean it, Laney. Anytime."
I locked the door after he left and stood there with my hand on the bolt. My heart was hammering and I felt ridiculous. Massimo hadn't done anything to me. He'd warned Nate off. That was all. But my whole body was vibrating with something I couldn't name. Fear. Anger. Something worse.
I knew what it meant.
He was here because of Nate. Not because of Rome.
Not because he'd thought about the dig or the papers or anything I'd been doing for the last ten years.
He'd come because he thought another man had taken what belonged to him.
He'd married someone else, dissolved our marriage, and still couldn't stand the idea that I might have moved on.
I pressed my palm to my stomach without thinking, then pulled it away.
He didn't know. He couldn't know.
I went to the window and looked down at the street.
It was late afternoon, the light slanting gold across the narrow cobblestones.
A woman walked past with a canvas bag of groceries.
A man on a scooter turned the corner, weaving between a delivery truck and a parked car.
Everything looked ordinary. Like the world hadn't just tilted sideways.
Then I saw him.
Massimo stood across the street, hands in his pockets, looking up at my building. He wasn't hiding. He was just there, like he had every right to be. Like he owned the street and the building and me.
My breath caught. For a second I thought about stepping back from the window. Pretending I hadn't seen him. But he'd already spotted me. He tilted his head slightly, an acknowledgment, and started across the street. His stride was confident. Unhurried.
What was I thinking?
I didn't go down to meet him. I stayed where I was and waited, my heart slamming against my ribs.
A minute later I heard his footsteps on the stairs, steady and unhurried.
He took them the way he took everything — like he had all the time in the world and nothing could touch him. Then a knock. Three sharp raps.
I opened the door.
He looked tired. There were shadows under his eyes and his shirt was wrinkled, like he'd been wearing it too long.
The collar was open and his tie was gone.
But he was still Massimo. Still composed.
Still impossibly tall and broad-shouldered, filling the doorway.
Still watching me like he could see straight through to whatever I was trying not to say.
"Laney."
I didn't move. "You shouldn't be here."
"I know." He didn't apologize. He just stood there, close enough that I could smell the faint trace of his cologne and the coffee he must have had hours ago.
Close enough that heat radiated off him.
My stomach flipped. I hated that it still did that.
Hated that my body didn't have the sense to stop reacting to him.
"You put your hands on Nate."
"I did."
"Why?"
His jaw tightened. The muscle there jumped. "Because he needed to understand."
"Understand what?" My voice came out sharper than I meant it to. "That you're still my husband? You're not. We ended it, Massimo. You married someone else. You stood in a church and said vows to her."
"I know what I did."
"Then why are you here?"
He looked past me into the apartment, like he was searching for something, then back at my face. His eyes were dark and unreadable. "I needed to make sure he wasn't —"
"Wasn't what? Taking advantage of me? Lying to me? Sleeping with me?" I crossed my arms. My nails dug into my biceps. "He's my friend. He's been my friend since I was twenty-two years old, since before I ever met you. You don't get to put your hands on him because you decided you're worried now."
Massimo's expression shifted. Something harder moved behind his eyes. His shoulders went rigid. "I'm not here to argue with you."
"Then what are you here for?"
He didn't answer right away. The silence stretched between us. When he finally spoke his voice was quieter. Softer. "I came because I needed to know you were safe."
Safe. Like I was a problem to be managed. Like I was something fragile he'd left unattended and now had to check on before it broke. Like I was a piece on a board he needed to move back into place.
I looked at him — really looked at him — and I saw it.
The same thing I'd seen in his father a hundred times.
In his uncle. In Enzo. In every man at every family dinner who'd smiled at me and patted my hand and told me not to worry about things I didn't understand.
The certainty. The control. The absolute belief that he knew what I needed better than I did.
"You're one of them now."
Massimo went still. His whole body locked. "What?"
"You promised me you'd never be one of them." My throat felt like it was closing. Like I was choking on the words. "You said you'd stay out of it. That you'd keep your hands clean. That's the only reason I —"
I stopped. I couldn't finish the sentence. That's the only reason I married you.
"Laney." He took a step toward me and I stepped back. He stopped. The muscle in his jaw twitched again. His hands curled into fists at his sides, then released. "This is for you."
"No." The word came out flat. Hard. "It's not. You didn't come here for me, Massimo. You came here because another man looked at something you think is yours and you can't stand it. You came here to mark your territory like a dog with a bone."
"That's not —"
"It is." I was shaking now. My whole body vibrating.
"You didn't ask me about Rome. You didn't ask me what I've been doing or why I left or what any of it meant.
You found Nate and you put your hands on him and you came here to make sure I understood you're still in control. That's all this is. Control."
He stared at me. His face had gone pale. "You don't know what you're talking about."
"I do. I know exactly what I'm talking about.
I've been married into your family for ten years, Massimo.
I've watched them do this over and over.
I've watched your mother and your uncle and your father manage people and call it love.
" My voice cracked. "And this is what all of them say.
That it's for me. That it's to protect me.
That I don't understand how the world works.
But it's not protection. It's just control, and you're so deep in it now you can't even see the difference. "
His face went white. Completely bloodless. "That's not fair."
"It's true."
We stood there in the doorway. The silence stretched between us, heavy and awful. I could see him trying to find something to say. Something that would make me take it back. But there was nothing. He knew it as well as I did. I could see it in his eyes — the recognition. The shock of being named.
Finally he looked away. "I should go."
"Yes."
He didn't move. For a second I thought he was going to argue. To push back the way he used to, the way he always had when we fought about his mother or the family or the thousand small ways they'd worn me down. But he didn't. He just nodded once, stiffly, and turned toward the stairs.
I watched him go. His shoulders were tight and his footsteps were too careful, like he was keeping himself from running. Or from turning back. When he reached the landing he paused and looked back. His face was in shadow.
"If you need anything —"
"I won't."
He flinched. I saw it, even in the dim light of the stairwell. Then he was gone. The sound of his footsteps faded. The building's front door opened and closed.
I closed my door and locked it. My hands wouldn't stay still. I pressed my back against the wood and slid down until I was sitting on the floor with my knees pulled up to my chest. The apartment was quiet again. Just me and the sound of my own breathing and the muffled noise of the street below.
I thought about calling someone. Professor Benedetti. Nate. Even Chiara from the dig. But there was nothing to say. Nothing that would make sense. Massimo came and I sent him away. I told him he's become his family and he didn't deny it.
I'd sent Massimo away. I'd told him he was one of them, and I'd meant it. I'd seen it in his eyes when I said it. The way his face went white. The way he couldn't find an argument. He knew it was true.
But God, it hurt.
I sat there until the light coming through the window turned orange, then red, then faded into dusk. The apartment grew dim around me. Sofia would be back soon. I needed to pull myself together. Make dinner. Smile when she told me about her afternoon with Professor Benedetti's granddaughter.
I pressed my hand to my stomach again. This time I didn't pull away. I let it rest there, feeling the slight swell that nobody else would notice yet.
He didn't know about the baby. He'd come to deal with Nate. That was all. And I wasn't going to tell him. Not now. Maybe not ever.
If I told him now he'd think it was leverage.
A way to get me back. He'd decide the baby meant something he could fix, something he could manage and control and fold into whatever plan he'd convinced himself would make everything right.
He'd use it the way his family used everything — as a tool.
As a reason to bring me home and put me back where I belonged.
But it didn't work that way.
I'd seen what he was becoming. I'd named it out loud and he hadn't denied it.
He'd just looked at me like I'd hit him and then walked away.
Maybe that meant something. Maybe somewhere under the man who'd put his hands on Nate and come here to stake a claim, there was still the man I'd married.
The one who used to visit the dig. The one who used to ask me questions and listen to the answers.
But I couldn't wait around to find out.
I stood up and wiped my face. The apartment was almost dark.
I turned on the light in the kitchen and started pulling things out for dinner.
My hands were steadier now. The shaking had stopped.
I had a plan. I had Rome. I had Sofia, and I had the work Professor Benedetti was helping me rebuild.
My name. My career. The things I'd buried when I married into the Lombardo family.
And I had this. The baby. A secret Massimo didn't get to touch.
For now, that was enough.