9. Lila
9
LILA
I spend most of the day dodging Mateo. If I hear his voice at the end of a hall, I change direction. If I catch a glimpse of his shadow near the study, I retreat before he sees me. I avoid the main staircase. I listen at corners. The house is big enough to make it possible, but not easy. His presence moves through this place like current through a wire—quiet, constant, always there, whether I see him or not.
Nothing changed in this house since he fucked me on the terrace, but something most certainly changed inside me. I liked it—a little too much. It's what got me into trouble with Anton. Marcella told me when I started dating him that I had daddy issues, that my fascination with being smacked around and choked during sex was a manifestation of my inner need for discipline. I laughed her off, told her it was some bullshit my mother told her to say, but now I wonder if she's right.
My throat tingles at the idea of Mateo's fingers being wrapped around it.
Lev stays in the sitting room with a box of string and paper and decides he’s building traps. He explains them in detail while I sit beside him and pretend to follow the blueprints he’s drawing on the back of an old menu. There’s a spike pit in the laundry room, a secret panel behind the kitchen door, and a fake wall in the hallway leading to my room. All of it is designed to keep "the bad guys" out. I don’t ask why. I just nod along and tear strips of paper when he asks me to.
I hate that my own son lives like me—on edge, flighty, anxious. He may never have had a hand laid on him the way I have, but he definitely knows what it's like to feel fear. Anton saw to that. Lev lives in fear just like me, and now he looks at Mateo like a god—worships him. And I hate it. How can Mateo be allowed to put that feeling of safety in my boy's heart and not me?
When he loses interest and drifts toward the piano in the front room, I take my chance. My coat is still in the second-floor closet, untouched since the wedding. I bring it into the bathroom and lock the door. The burner phone is stitched into the lining, inside a pocket I made before Anton’s funeral. I rip the seam with a pair of tweezers, put the battery into it, and sit on the floor with the faucet running just loud enough to muffle the sound of the chime as it powers up.
Marcella answers on the second ring. She doesn’t say hello.
“You shouldn’t be calling me on this line.”
“I need five minutes,” I say.
“You’re taking a risk.”
“I know what I’m doing.” My heart is racing, sweat dampening my underarms. Mateo will skin me alive if he finds out I have a phone to contact the outside world. All communications pass through him—a rule I can't follow.
Her voice is quieter when she responds, and I hear the click of a pen followed by the rustle of paper being moved. She’s working. Always. That’s never changed. “They’re refiling today,” she says. “An emergency petition. Coercion, undue pressure, manipulation. They’re calling the marriage fraudulent.”
“They can’t prove that,” I say, but I wonder if they can. If she would. Mother doesn't seem to understand who she's fighting against. She tried this once before, when Lev was first born. Anton taught her why she shouldn't mess with a Rossi, but maybe she forgot. Or maybe she thinks Mateo is a pushover.
“They don’t have to. They just have to convince the court that you didn’t want it.” I picture Marcella's prim lips in a tight line, eyes narrowed. She loves me. I know she does. She's the only true family I have—her and Lev.
I press my palm against the side of the sink. The porcelain is cold and damp, and the metal fixtures are fogging over from the heat of the water. My stomach twists in slow, deliberate turns, but I keep my voice steady.
“What evidence do they have?”
“They’ve already submitted a timeline. No public record of the engagement. No ceremony. Just signatures. Someone leaked the license. It was dated before the meeting with the mediator, but they say it wasn't signed until after. They’re calling it premeditated control. They think you're under duress.”
“They want Lev.” My mind is numb. For the first time in her life, my mother is acting like she cares. She has all the facts right but she doesn't seem to notice that I'm actually under duress. Her investigators can see it, but all she wants is my son.
“They want to win,” she says. “Lev is leverage. He’s not a child to them. He’s a chess piece with your blood in his veins and a last name they don’t want on paper next to Rossi.”
The water drips onto the floor. I turn off the tap but don’t move. I stare at the drain, waiting for the sound to stop. There's a clog somewhere down the line… Reminds me of how I feel stuck here, unable to flow with the wind or my emotion. Mateo has clogged my flow. Goddammit.
“If this works, they’ll dissolve the marriage?”
“They’ll say it was never valid to begin with.” Marcella sighs, and I sink to the edge of the bathtub and sit. I don't know why they're doing this. Mother doesn’t really want Lev. She just wants to prove she's right and that I made bad choices. If she were any mother at all, she would welcome me home and help me fix my fucking mistakes. I know they're real.
“And custody goes back on the table?”
Marcella exhales slowly. “They’ve already submitted their preferred guardian. A private school placement. Residential. Supervised transition.”
“They can’t do that.” My eyes water, but I refuse to cry. I won't let Lev be used as a pawn to destroy my life. He won't be loved or nurtured there. He needs me.
“They already are.” She sighs again and says, "Look, Lila, come home. Find a way to get out of there and come home. Show your mother that you are a good parent. Come live with me. I'll help. I can?—"
I hang up before she can say anything else. I take out the SIM card, break it in half, and flush both it and the battery. The phone follows. It clatters against the bowl on the way down, but I watch it go. When the water settles, I unlock the door and rinse my face in the sink with what’s left of the warm water.
Downstairs, Lev is sitting at the piano bench playing single notes with one finger. His tongue sticks out slightly when he concentrates. It's adorable, and if I weren't so upset, I would happily stand and watch him. I walk past without stopping and head toward the dining room.
Mateo's already seated at the table, sleeves rolled halfway to the elbow, eating without hurry. Lev’s plate is half cleared, but he’s rushed off before he finished. I take my place across from Mateo and unfold the napkin. He doesn’t speak. He doesn’t look up. I force down three bites of something I don’t taste and watch his hand move from glass to fork and back again.
Midway through the meal, I set my fork down and fix my gaze on his.
“If the court challenges the marriage, what happens to Lev?” My voice is trembling because I need help, and I don't know where to turn. Anton would never have helped me, but for some fucking reason, this asshole seems to want to, even if it's for his own selfish gain. Mateo wants Lev for some reason, but I'm not blind. Even I can see the difference between the Rossi brothers. Mateo cares for Lev and doesn’t treat him harshly. That's not fatherly affection, but it's better than he’d get with my mother.
He doesn’t pause. He cuts through his food and lifts it to his mouth before answering. “They won’t challenge it.” His voice is monotone, undisturbed.
“That wasn’t my question.”
“If they do, the custody order dissolves.” His eyes snap to mine, sharp and edgy. He's not in the mood for my chatter, but I need help.
“And?” My throat feels like it's catching, choking me. Marcella's words haunt me. Mother is still coming after Lev and I can't stop her.
“Then I fight for him alone.” I don't know what "alone" means, but I conjure images of my mother lying in a pool of her own blood and it makes me sick to the stomach. I swallow hard and try not to blink.
My stomach twists, but I hold his gaze. “So you already knew they were filing.”
“Yes.” He is so fucking calm. How does he stay so calm when I'm so angry?
“You didn’t think I deserved to know?” I push my plate away and fold my hands in my lap to keep from slamming them on the table.
“It changes nothing.”
“It changes everything for me.” My voice doesn’t rise, but every word feels sharp. “I’m the one whose name is on that petition. I’m the one they’re calling unstable.”
He picks up his glass and takes a drink without looking at me. “And if I told you, what would you have done? Panicked? Called your cousin? Made it worse?”
“I would’ve liked the chance to decide that for myself.” I'm so close to slapping him again, storming out. "You’re hiding things from me."
His eyes lift slowly from the rim of his glass. “I’m not hiding anything that matters.”
“You’re hiding everything,” I say. “You knew what they were doing before I did. You’re tracking my family. You’re burying things I might need to know, and now you’re sitting there like I’m supposed to thank you for it.”
He places the glass down gently, the sound dull against the tablecloth. “If you want to be protected, stop working against me.”
“I’m not one of your men.” Now I'm seething, slowly standing up and leaving my napkin on the half-eaten food.
“No,” he says, watching me closely. “You’re something more unpredictable than that.”
I cross my arms over my chest. “You don’t want a wife. You want a prisoner.”
He doesn’t flinch. “I never wanted a wife," he says coldly. "I want control. There’s a difference.”
I shake my head, too tired to keep my expression in place. “You think obedience is loyalty. It’s not.”
“I don’t need loyalty from you,” he says. “I need you to follow instructions.”
“And if I don’t?”
He shrugs slightly, not as a threat, but as a man who’s already considered every outcome. “Then don’t expect my help when they come.”
I open my mouth to answer, but Lev’s voice cuts through the silence from the other side of the hall.
“Mommy?” He's heard our shouting, something Anton was never shy about either. Lev looks scared, wide-eyed, hands trembling. He doesn’t look at Mateo. He walks straight to me and reaches for me to lift him up in my arms like he’s still three years old.
“Are you angry?” he says, arms around my neck. “I hear you shouting.”
"I'm okay, baby. I'm not angry with you." I smooth his hair, and he buries his face in my neck.
"Can I sleep with you?" he asks, and it's muffled by my hair. I glare at Mateo and blink back tears. I can’t lose my son. I won't. Not to my mother or this monster.
Mateo watches us. His expression doesn’t change. He stays still, unreadable, giving nothing away. It’s as if this moment isn’t his to understand. I stand with Lev still clinging to me. He wraps his legs around my waist, his arms tight at my shoulders, and holds me like he did every time he heard me and Anton arguing.
I don’t look at Mateo again. I carry Lev out of the dining room, up the stairs, and into my room. I lay him down gently and slide in beside him, keeping my arm wrapped around his small frame until his breathing evens out. It's very early for bedtime, but fear always makes him tired. It tires me too, but not as much as this rage I can't seem to quit.
Lev doesn’t ask if Mateo is going to hurt him like his father did. He's naive, too young to know the battle being waged for his future. He just presses himself into the warmth of my side like I’m the only thing in the world keeping him anchored.
It might be the other way around.