20. Serena
SERENA
The first version comes from Lucia. Which means it comes with profanity, hand gestures I can’t see through the phone but absolutely know are happening, and at least one threat involving a hospital bedpan.
“He knelt,” she says.
I sit very still on the edge of her guest bed.
The mattress dips in the middle because it wasn’t built for pregnant women, emotional collapse, or whatever my life is currently doing.
I have one sock on and one sock off. The off sock is on the floor because I tried to bend down and get it, then remembered I’m shaped like a small luxury yacht.
“Who knelt?” I ask.
Lucia goes quiet. That’s how I know I’ve said something stupid.
“Your husband.”
My chest does something annoying. Very annoying. It kind of twists.
“Where?”
“In front of the Castellano council.”
There’s a framed print of a lemon tree hanging slightly crooked beside the wardrobe. I’ve looked at it so much since I came back from the hospital that I now have strong feelings about the lemons. Most of the feelings are judgment.
“That doesn’t sound like Rocco.”
“I know.”
“Rocco Castellano does not kneel.”
“Apparently Rocco Castellano does now, because every capo and driver from London to Edinburgh is calling each other like old ladies at a bingo hall.”
I press my palm to my stomach. The baby shifts. Not a kick, exactly. More like a roll. Like even my unborn child is saying, Excuse me, what? Relatable.
“Who told you?” I ask.
“Matteo heard from one of the guards outside his room.”
Matteo.
It stings that I haven’t seen him since the attack. Doctors wanted him kept under observation. Rocco’s men wanted him protected, which is still a sentence that makes my brain itch.
Rocco’s men. The same soldiers who’d have put Matteo in the ground last month on a word from the boss, now standing guard on his door. What’s next? Claudia starting a charity for women she hasn’t emotionally stabbed?
“What did he say?” I ask.
Lucia exhales. “That’s where it gets messy.”
“All of this is messy.”
“He said you told him the truth and he chose not to believe you.”
I close my eyes. The room doesn’t move. I do. Inside.
Some small locked thing in me gives one hard shake. Not open. Just awake.
“Who said that?” I whisper.
“Guard heard it from another guard who was on the door.”
“So gossip.”
“The worst kind. Everyone has a gun and no one uses punctuation.”
I swallow. My throat hurts.
“I don’t trust gossip.”
“Good.”
“Even if I want to.”
Lucia’s voice softens. “I know, darling.”
I hate that she knows. I love that she knows.
“What else?” I ask.
“He stripped Claudia.”
My eyebrows lift. “Please use different words when discussing my husband and Claudia.”
“Power, Serena. He stripped her power. Good grief, your mind’s filthy.”
“I’m pregnant and separated from a very attractive villain in a suit. Let me have my coping mechanisms.”
Lucia snorts. Then she gets serious again.
“He cut off her accounts, guards, cars, trusts, everything. Vittorio too. Removed him from inner council. Took his vote, his men, his cut of the docks. In that world that’s not a demotion. That’s a man left standing in the road with a target on his back.”
I open my eyes. The lemon tree is still crooked. My whole life is crooked.
“Rocco removed Vittorio?”
“That’s what I heard.”
I sit there with my bare foot cold on the floor and the other foot sweating in a sock.
“Why?” I ask.
“Because apparently he finally found the spine he uses with everyone except his own family.”
That lands too close. Lucia knows it.
“Sorry.”
“No. You’re right.”
There had been a note. I found it beside the hospital water when I woke.
Serena,
I have to go to council.
Not to defend myself.
To tell the truth where it costs me.
You do not owe me trust for it.
Sleep.
R.
I read it five times. Then I put it in my bag like a pathetic raccoon hoarding shiny trash.
Not trash. That’s the problem. It felt like something. Something small and real and terrible because small real things are more dangerous than grand speeches. Grand speeches can be fake. A note written with a cardiology pen at four in the morning is harder to dismiss.
“Serena?” Lucia asks.
“I’m here.”
“Do you want me to come back?”
She’s downstairs in the pharmacy because she said we needed more prenatal vitamins, wound dressings, and biscuits. In Lucia’s mind, that’s one category.
“No,” I say. “Finish buying half of Boots.”
We hang up after she promises to return in twenty minutes and I promise not to open the door to anyone who is not her, Rocco, or a medical professional with identification.
I don’t promise not to spiral. Because I’m not a liar. Well. I’m a little bit a liar. Mostly about toast.
Matteo calls a few minutes later, voice rough and tired, and I answer too fast.
“Hi,” I say.
“You sound guilty.”
I close my eyes. “You sound concussed.”
“I’m mildly concussed.”
His voice is still him. Dry. Warm. Careful around me without making me feel breakable. It makes my eyes sting.
“How are you?” I ask.
“Sore,” he admits. “Angry. Embarrassed. I got blood on Lucia’s rug.”
“She’s pricing replacements with the focus of a woman choosing a revenge weapon.”
He gives a quiet laugh, then inhales too sharply.
“Don’t laugh,” I say.
“I forgot laughing uses ribs.”
Silence slips between us. Not bad. Just full. The kind that has too much in its pockets.
“A man on the council called me,” he says. “To apologize.”
That’s not what I expected. “For what?”
“For believing I touched you.”
Heat crawls up my neck. Not the good kind. The humiliation kind. The kind that remembers guards not looking me in the eye. Claudia’s soft voice. Rocco’s face when he chose not to know me.
“Oh.”
“He also told them I was under Castellano protection,” Matteo says. “Last night. During the fight. He made it clear if anyone came for me, they came for him.”
My heart trips. Stupid thing.
“Why are you telling me this?” I ask.
“Because you need the truth even when it helps him.”
I squeeze my eyes shut. Oh. That hurts too. Different place. Cleaner.
“You’re too good,” I whisper.
“No.” He is quiet a second. “I love you,” he says, and my whole body goes still. “But I’m not going to become another person shaping the facts so I can keep you near me.”
The ceiling blurs. I hate men. Not all men. Just the ones who make me feel things at inconvenient times.
“Matteo.”
“You don’t have to say anything.”
That’s why it hurts. Because I believe him. Because if he pressed, if he made his pain my bill to pay, it would be easier to pull away.
He doesn’t.
“Rocco came for you,” Matteo says. “Late. Badly. With a lot to fix. But last night he came.”
My tears fall. Quiet and irritating. I wipe them with the heel of my hand.
“You’re supposed to make this less confusing.”
“I’m sorry.”
“No, you’re not.”
“Not really.”
We both almost laugh. Neither of us quite makes it.
“Rest,” I tell him.
“Eat,” he says.
When we hang up, the baby nudges me again. Small. Persistent. Like, Are we done being dramatic? I have organs to grow.
“Sorry,” I whisper.
Rosa Castellano calls fifteen minutes later. I almost don’t answer. Then I remember I’m tired of men being the only messengers in my life, so I swipe.
“Serena,” she says. No hello. Castellanos love to enter a conversation like doors don’t exist.
“Rosa.”
“You sound awful.”
“Thank you.”
“I mean it kindly.”
“That’s somehow worse.”
She makes a small pleased sound. “There she is.”
“If you’re calling to manage me?—”
“I’m calling because your husband did something useful and men will ruin the story by sunset.”
I pause. “That sounds accurate.”
“He removed Vittorio. Stripped Claudia. He burned standing in front of those people.” A beat. “And you still owe him nothing.”
That stops me. The room goes very quiet around that sentence.
“Why would you say that?”
“Because Castellano men are very good at turning one correct act into a debt. Rocco’s trying not to. He may even succeed. The family won’t be as noble. They will call what he did proof. They will push you to reward it. Do not.”
I press my lips together. Tears again. Fantastic.
“Is it safe?” I ask.
Rosa doesn’t answer quickly. That tells me enough.
“Rocco’s made a correct move that creates danger,” she says. “Rafe will see a split.”
“Rafe already attacked the flat.”
“And failed.”
“Comforting.”
“I didn’t call to comfort you. I called to tell you the truth before someone makes it smaller.”
I laugh. It sounds broken, but it counts.
After Rosa hangs up, I stand in the middle of Lucia’s guest room wearing one sock, holding my phone.
Lucia’s fury. Matteo’s honesty. Rosa’s warning. They all say the same thing. Rocco knelt. Rocco told the truth. Rocco paid something real.
And I don’t trust it until I see him.
That’s the embarrassing part. Not that I doubt him. I’ve earned doubt. I have a whole degree in doubt now. Summa cum laude, emotionally exhausted.
The embarrassing part is that I want to see him so badly my skin feels too tight. I want him to walk in and not make me ask.
There’s a knock. Three soft taps. Not the guard’s knock. Not Lucia, who knocks once and then enters like she owns the concept of doors.
My heart jumps so hard it hurts.
“Who is it?”
His voice comes through the wood. Low. Rough.
“Rocco.”
“Are you alone?” I ask.
“No guards in the flat.”
“Semantics.”
“Trying my best.”
“Come in,” I say.
The door opens. And there he is. Still in the suit. Black jacket. White shirt open at the throat. Blood faint near his side where the bandage must have seeped again. Hair messy from his hands. Face tired in a way that makes him look older than he is.
Rocco Castellano doesn’t look untouchable. He looks like a man who knelt on a cold floor and got up with less skin than he had before.
My throat closes.
“Hi,” I say, because apparently I’m twelve.
His eyes move over me fast. Checking. Not owning. My face. My stomach. My bare foot.
“Hi.”
I point at the chair by the door because if he comes too close too fast I may climb him like bad judgment in maternity leggings.
“Sit.”
He sits. Immediately.
Oh, that’s dangerous. Obedient Rocco should be illegal.