8. Rocco #2
The jealousy comes back. God, it comes back.
I want to be the one she looks at when the baby kicks. I want to put my hand on her stomach and feel my child move under my palm.
I want my wife.
Wanting has never been my problem.
What I do with wanting is where I keep becoming a man she has to run from.
I pick up my phone.
Vittorio’s shoulders ease. Claudia’s mouth softens.
They think they have me.
My thumb hovers over Matteo’s name.
Old habit says call him first. Threaten. Command.
I do not call. I open Serena’s contact instead.
Her photo fills the screen. She took it herself in our kitchen months ago, wearing one of my shirts and holding a lemon like evidence. Her hair was in a messy knot. No makeup. My shirt unbuttoned too low because she liked watching me lose my train of thought.
Before the tape. Before I let strangers teach me my wife.
I press call.
It rings once. Twice. Three times.
Straight to voicemail.
Her voice says, “It’s Serena. If this is Lucia, I’m alive. If this is Rocco, I’m probably busy.”
The message ends. I lower the phone.
My uncle’s face is carved from disgust.
“This is weakness.”
Maybe.
Or maybe weakness was watching a tape with no face and calling it truth because anger was easier than trust.
Maybe weakness was letting Claudia sit in Serena’s chair because I didn’t want to look at the empty one.
I press the intercom.
“Bring in the Edinburgh map,” I say.
Vittorio nods once, satisfied.
He hears the first half of the order before I give the second. That’s his mistake.
I stand. This time, my hands are steady.
“Lewis.”
“Yes.”
“Restore every account with Serena’s name on it. Personal, household, emergency funds, cards, transfers. Remove primary holder restrictions. If the bank needs my voice, wake the chairman. If they need a sacrifice, use Vittorio’s wine cellar.”
Lewis’s mouth almost moves.
“Yes, boss.”
Vittorio’s face darkens.
“Rocco.”
I ignore him.
“Put a message through every safe channel Serena might still check. Tell her the accounts are restored. Tell her there are no conditions.”
Claudia steps forward. “Are you sure that’s wise? If D’Amato has access?—”
“D’Amato doesn’t get to be the excuse for me humiliating my wife.”
Her lips part. She recovers quickly.
“Of course.”
Not quickly enough. He saw it too.
Good.
“And Matteo?” Vittorio asks. His voice is low now. Dangerous in the old way. “You cannot let this stand.”
No. I cannot. But not the way he means.
If Matteo has endangered her, I’ll deal with him.
If Matteo has protected her from me, then the debt is mine.
I hate that. I believe it anyway.
The door opens and one of my men brings in the map. He spreads it over the side table. Edinburgh in streets and blocks and red marks. Lucia’s building circled. The abandoned car marked. Possible clinics. Possible flats. Possible exits.
My wife reduced to pins on paper.
No. Not my wife. My failure.
That’s what the map shows.
I walk to it. Everyone moves with me.
An army in a room—soldiers, drivers, guns for hire, every one of them mine to point—staring at a city where a pregnant woman is trying to stay safe from the man who once promised nobody would ever make her run again.
I touch the circle around Lucia’s building.
“No guns inside any building she might be in.”
Vittorio makes a hard sound. I keep going.
“No contact with Lucia unless Lucia contacts us. No clinic intimidation. No bankers, landlords, shopkeepers, neighbors, or friends threatened. No Greco family pulled in unless there’s proof Matteo reached out to them for armed support.”
“You’re tying your own hands,” Vittorio says.
“Good.”
His head turns toward me. I don’t look away from the map.
“My hands have done enough.”
Lewis’s phone buzzes. He checks it.
“Bank confirms the main restriction is removed. Cards may take a few minutes. Transfers are live.”
My chest loosens by half an inch. Not relief. Relief would be too generous.
This is just one hand loosening from around her throat after I spent four days pretending it was an umbrella.
“Send proof,” I say. “Screenshots. Confirmation numbers.”
“To Serena?”
“To Lucia too.”
Vittorio swears under his breath in Italian.
Claudia steps beside me, not too close. Always just near enough to look trusted. Never near enough to look hungry.
“I know you love her,” she says.
I look at the map.
“Do you?”
“Everyone knows.”
“That must be embarrassing for everyone.”
Lewis coughs. Vittorio glares at him.
Claudia’s smile trembles at the edge, but she keeps it.
“Love can make good men slow to act.”
“So can bad advice.”
Her eyes lift to mine.
There.
A flash. Small and sharp.
Then it’s gone.
“I only want Serena safe,” she says.
“Then we want the same thing.”
We do not.
I do not know all of it yet, but I know that.
My phone buzzes in my hand. Unknown number.
For one stupid second, I think it’s Serena. It is not.
The message is only a photo.
A grainy shot from a distance. A woman in a navy coat entering a narrow stone building. Her head is down. Hair covered. Face hidden by the angle and rain.
But I know the way she holds her left hand near her stomach.
Serena.
Matteo’s behind her, carrying two grocery bags.
Not touching her. Close enough to cover her. Close enough to make my vision go red anyway.
Another message follows. No words. Just an address.
Lewis sees my face.
“Boss?”
I turn the phone so he can read it. He goes still.
Vittorio steps closer.
“There,” he says. “Now give the order.”
Claudia’s hand comes to her throat. Beautiful concern.
“Rocco, if she’s with him?—”
“Enough.”
My voice cuts through the room. It feels good. Too good.
I look at Serena in the photo until the red clears enough for me to think.
She’s alive. She’s walking. She has food.
She is not looking back.
That last part is the one that guts me.
I hand the phone to Lewis.
“Verify the address quietly.”
“And if it’s real?”
Vittorio answers before I can.
“We take men.”
I look at my uncle.
Then at the woman in the photo who told me the truth twice while I stood in front of her and made silence into a weapon.
My wife. My child.
The man beside her carrying groceries I should’ve paid for without making her ask.
I breathe once. It burns all the way down.
“Find her,” I say. “Do not touch her.”