15. Serena
SERENA
Ifind out Rocco stripped Claudia’s access because Lucia screams in the kitchen. Not a terrified scream. A joyful one. Different pitch. More murder musical.
I’m on the sofa bed with my feet under a blanket, a bottle of water beside me. Like a pregnant statue. Saint Serena of Please Let This Baby Be Fine.
The calendar has gone strange in Lucia’s flat. Days blur into borrowed leggings and Matteo’s careful quiet, and somewhere in the blur I crossed into five months. The bump is a personality now. It has opinions about my ribs, my bladder, and everything Lucia says before nine in the morning.
“What?” I call.
Lucia appears in the doorway holding her phone like it just proposed.
“He did it.”
“Who did what?”
“Your terrible husband.”
My heart does the stupid thing where it trips over itself at the word husband. I’ve asked it to stop. It’s refused in writing.
“Lucia.”
“Rocco cut Claudia off.”
The room goes quiet. Matteo is by the window, pretending not to watch the street through the gap in the curtain. He turns his head a little.
“Cut her off how?” he asks.
Lucia reads from her phone. “Family access revoked. Security codes disabled. Council packet privileges suspended. Courier clearances suspended. Widow’s household staff accounts locked pending review.”
“I don’t know what half of that means, but it sounds expensive and public. My favorite kind of consequence.”
I sit up too fast. My stomach pulls. Not pain like yesterday. Just a reminder.
“Where did you get that?”
“Maria—she used to do flowers for Castellano dinners and still texts me because she likes gossip and hates Claudia’s face.”
“That’s not a source.”
“That is a very good source.”
Matteo crosses the room and takes the phone. He reads it. “It’s real,” he says. “The wording.”
“Because mafia men have a house style?”
“Yes.”
Lucia points at him. “I knew crime had branding.”
I don’t laugh. I’m too busy trying to understand the feeling moving through my chest.
Not relief. Relief would mean something is over. Nothing is over. Claudia’s still breathing. Rafe’s still out there.
But Rocco did something. Not flowers. Not a text. He cut Claudia’s power in front of the council—the capos, the old guard, the people whose respect keeps him in the chair.
By my order.
“Does it prove anything?” I ask.
Matteo gives me the honest answer because that’s his worst habit. “Not enough.”
The words land like an echo. I said them to Rocco on the stairs. Now they’re back in the room, sitting on the coffee table between yesterday’s crackers and Lucia’s unpaid electric bill.
“Right,” I say.
Lucia’s face softens, but she doesn’t push it.
Matteo hands Lucia back her phone. “I’m going to check the rear lane. Rocco’s men moved farther out after the hospital. That leaves a blind corner near the bins.”
Lucia makes a face. “Our bins aren’t worth tactical language.”
“Everything’s worth tactical language if someone can hide behind it,” Matteo says. “Lock the door after me. I’ll knock twice, pause, then once.”
Rocco’s knock. My stomach flips.
Matteo sees something on my face. His voice drops. “Different rhythm.”
That is kind. Too kind. The kind that makes the room complicated.
“Okay,” I say.
He leaves. Lucia locks the door, then rounds on me with the subtlety of a woman holding a neon sign.
“That face you use when you’re trying not to ask about my marriage.”
She sighs. “Do you want to talk about it?”
“No.”
She comes to the sofa and sits beside my feet.
My old life had silk rugs and staff who refilled water glasses before I noticed they were empty. This life has a sofa bed with a middle crease and my sister rubbing my ankle through wool socks. I should hate the downgrade. I don’t. I hate why I’m here.
“He did something,” Lucia says quietly.
“I know. Not enough.”
“But something.”
My throat aches. “Yes.”
Lucia doesn’t push. That’s how I know she’s really worried.
Five minutes later, her phone buzzes again. She reads it and swears.
“Bakery emergency. Darren locked himself in the walk-in.”
“Again?”
“Last time he was vaping behind the butter.”
Despite everything, I laugh. It comes out rusty but real.
Lucia stands. “I’ll be twenty minutes.”
“Lucia, I can sit on a sofa by myself.”
Lucia doesn’t blink. “Yesterday your uterus staged a coup.”
“And failed.”
“Still.”
The knock comes before she can start the full sister lecture. Two knocks. A pause. One.
Matteo.
Lucia opens the door.
Only it isn’t Matteo. It’s Rocco.
For one second, nobody moves.
He stands in the hallway in a black coat, rain on his shoulders, blood on his knuckles, and a split near his cheekbone. Enough to make my whole body go cold, then hot.
“That’s not your knock,” I say, because apparently that’s what my brain chooses.
Rocco looks at me. Really looks. And the room tilts.
He’s worse than yesterday. Less controlled. His eyes are so tired they look almost black.
Still gorgeous. Deeply unfair. Someone should file a complaint.
Lucia plants herself in the doorway. “Why are you bleeding?”
“It’s not all mine.”
“That’s not better.”
“No.”
“Where is Matteo?” I ask.
Rocco’s face closes at his name. Just a flicker. “Rear lane.”
“How do you know?”
“Because my men are outside the perimeter he’s checking.”
Lucia turns to me. “I understood almost none of that and hated all of it.”
I look at Rocco’s hands. Bloody. Split. Dangerous hands. Hands that once knew every soft place on my body. Hands that sent me away.
“Did you come here to tell me about Claudia?” I ask.
He searches my face like he’s checking for pain. “No.”
“Then why?”
“Because there was a threat on the east side of the perimeter.”
Lucia stiffens. “A what?”
“Someone watching the rear lane. He ran. My men caught him two streets down. He’ll give up a name before morning.”
My hand goes to my stomach. Rocco sees it. His jaw tightens. “He didn’t get near the building.”
“But you did,” Lucia says.
He doesn’t deny it. “Yes.”
“Convenient.”
“Yes.”
Rocco’s attention comes back to me. “I wanted to make sure you were all right. That part’s selfish. I’m saying it before anyone else does.”
Lucia blinks. Then mutters, “Damn. Growth is annoying.”
I should send him away. Every sensible part of me knows letting him inside is a bad idea. Unfortunately, I’ve never been sensible about Rocco Castellano.
“Go save Darren,” I tell Lucia.
Her eyes widen. “Absolutely not.”
“You said twenty minutes.”
“I lied. It’ll be thirty because Darren cries when cold.”
Rocco’s mouth almost moves. Almost.
“I’ll stay in the hall,” he says.
I hate the image of him waiting outside again, bloody and silent, while I sit in here pretending I don’t want to ask if he’s hurt.
“Come in,” I say.
Lucia says, “Serena.”
“Door stays open.”
Rocco steps inside, then stops immediately. Waiting. For permission.
“Kitchen,” I say.
“You should rest.”
“And you shouldn’t bleed on Lucia’s rug. Kitchen.”
Lucia points at Rocco. “If she says leave, you leave.”
“Yes.”
“If she says stop, you stop.”
Rocco answers me, not her. “Yes.”
That one isn’t for Lucia. My stomach tightens. Not pain. Want. Horrible timing. Terrible taste. Very committed.
Lucia leaves after giving me three looks, two silent threats, and one text message that says:
IF HE GETS WEIRD I WILL HIT HIM WITH THE KETTLE.
I text back:
romantic
Then I put the phone down and follow Rocco into the kitchen.
It’s not a kitchen built for mafia confrontation. The counter’s chipped. There’s a dish towel with Highland cows on it hanging from the oven handle. Rocco fills the room anyway.
He stands by the sink and runs water over his knuckles. Red threads down the drain. My stomach turns.
“Sit,” I say.
He sits at the tiny table. Rocco Castellano, boss of a family people whisper about, in Lucia’s wobbly kitchen chair with blood on his shirt.
I get the first-aid kit from under the sink. “Give me your hand.”
“You don’t have to.”
“I know.”
I hold out my palm. After a second, he gives me his hand. Heavy. Warm. Rough at the knuckles. Familiar in a way that makes my chest ache.
I clean the cuts with an antiseptic wipe. He doesn’t flinch.
“Does it hurt?”
“No.”
“Liar.”
His mouth twitches. “A little.”
“Better.”
The silence between us isn’t soft. It’s full of everything we aren’t saying. Claudia. The hospital. The tape. The question I threw at him before closing the car door.
I press the wipe harder than necessary. He lets me.
“You cut her off,” I say.
His hand goes still in mine. “Yes.”
“Claudia.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
His eyes stay on my face. “Because she lied.”
My heart hits once. Hard. “You know that?”
“I know enough to act. Not enough to give you everything you deserve.”
That answer is too good. He’s finally telling the truth in pieces big enough to hurt.
“What did she lie about?”
His mouth flattens. “She saw more footage than she admitted.”
My fingers pause on his knuckles. The room drops away. More of the woman who wasn’t me. More of my stolen body.
“Did she know it wasn’t me?”
His head drops. “I think so.”
“Think.”
“I’m not giving you guesses as proof.”
“How noble.”
He opens his eyes. “No. Late.”
Late. There’s that word again. Late belief. Late money. Late husband.
I wrap gauze around his knuckles. My hands are steadier than I feel.
“Does she still have power?”
“Less.”
“That’s not no.”
“No.” His voice hardens. Not at me. At the answer. “Not for long.”
There he is. The man people fear, who can move money, men, and blood with one quiet order. It should scare me. It doesn’t. I like the danger in him when it isn’t pointed at me. I always have.
Rocco’s eyes drop to my mouth. Just for a second.
Everything in the kitchen changes. The air gets tight. My fingers are still around his hand. His knee is near mine under the table.
I should let go. I don’t.
“Don’t,” I say.
His eyes snap back to mine. “Don’t what?”
“Look at me like that.”
His throat moves. “I’m trying not to.”
“Try harder.”
“I am.”
The answer is rough. It goes straight through me. My body, traitor that it is, remembers him in the dark hall. His hands on my thighs. His mouth at my neck. My body doesn’t care about evidence. It only knows this man.