21. Serena #2
Okay. It doesn’t say set on fire. But spiritually, I feel it.
“This is a lot,” I say.
“Yes.”
“Your lawyer must hate me.”
“My lawyer is afraid of you. And Lucia.”
“Good.”
I keep reading. My eyes catch on one clause.
No employee, guard, associate, contractor, or family affiliate connected to Rocco Alexander Castellano or any Castellano-controlled entity may physically relocate Serena Lucia Russo Castellano or the minor child without Serena’s contemporaneous written and verbal consent, except in immediate life-threatening circumstances where Serena is medically incapacitated and transfer is certified necessary by an attending physician unaffiliated with Castellano interests.
I read it twice. Then again. My mouth dries.
Rocco is very quiet. He knows which clause I found.
“This is about the guards,” I say.
“Yes.”
“When you sent me away. You wrote this because of that?”
“I had it written because of that.”
He took the one power he used to break me and wrote it out of his own hands. Signed the cage shut with himself on the outside.
The tears come anyway. Small. Hot. Furious.
“You told them to take me,” I say.
“I did.”
“I said no. I was pregnant.”
He closes his eyes. “Yes.”
“And you told yourself it was protection.”
“Yes.”
I wipe my cheek hard. “I hate this.”
“I know. Sorry. I know I keep saying that.”
“It’s annoying. But also correct.”
“Also yes.”
I laugh, then cry harder, which is rude of my body. Rocco looks like he’s being skinned alive. He still doesn’t touch me.
That is what finally makes me reach for him. Not because I forgive him. Because he’s letting the hurt exist without trying to cover it with his hands.
I grab his wrist. His whole body goes still.
“You can touch me,” I say.
“Are you sure?”
“If you ask that every time, I may become violent.”
“Noted.”
He moves slowly and pulls me into his chest. Careful of my stomach. Careful of his side.
I cry into his bare shoulder and hate him a little and love him a little and mostly just feel very, very tired.
“I’m sorry,” he whispers.
“I know you are.”
We stay like that until the front door opens.
Lucia’s voice comes down the hall. “If anyone’s naked in my guest room, I’m leaving these biscuits in the hall and calling a priest.”
“I have trousers on,” Rocco calls.
Lucia appears in the doorway with two shopping bags, her coat half off, and a look on her face that says she regrets every decision that led to this visual.
“He gave me papers,” I say.
Her eyes drop to the bed. Then to Rocco’s open shirt. Then back to the papers. “Is that what we’re calling it now?”
“Lucia.”
“I’m coping.”
Rocco reaches for his shirt. “I’ll dress.”
“Please do,” Lucia says. “I’ve seen enough Castellano chest for one lifetime.”
While he buttons his shirt, Lucia picks up the top page and scans it with the speed of a woman who has read contracts, death certificates, and the back of biscuit boxes with equal suspicion.
“This needs a lawyer,” she says. “Not yours. Not family. Not anyone who’s ever had lunch with Claudia.”
“All covered,” Rocco says.
“Do not charm me by being reasonable.”
Her face changes when she reaches the guard clause. Something in her expression loses its sharp little performance.
“Good,” she says. One word.
That gets me. “Yeah,” I whisper.
She sets the papers down and starts pulling items from the shopping bags. Biscuits. Prenatal vitamins. Wound dressings. Bananas. A packet of tiny baby socks.
I stare at them. “You bought baby socks at the pharmacy?”
“They were yellow.”
“You hate yellow.”
“The baby might not.”
Oh no. Not Lucia with baby socks. I won’t survive this. I cover my face. “Everyone stop being nice. I’m fragile and underfed.”
“Eat a biscuit,” Lucia says.
The phone on Lucia’s kitchen counter rings. Hers. She looks at the screen and her face changes. “Hospital,” she says.
My stomach drops. Rocco’s standing before I can breathe.
“Matteo?” I ask.
Lucia answers. There is a pause. Long enough for my whole body to go cold. Then her shoulders relax. “Fine. Yes. Tell him I said he’s an idiot. Use those words.” She hangs up. “He discharged himself. Technically, he’s being discharged with instructions and a nurse who hates him.”
“Why?”
“Because he wants to see you.”
Rocco goes very still. Not rage. Not even jealousy, exactly. More like pain remembering where to stand.
“You can leave if you need to,” I say.
“Do you want me to leave?”
The actual question. Not what he can handle. What I want.
“No,” I say. “But I don’t want you making this harder for him. Or for me.”
“I won’t.”
Lucia snorts. “I’ll be supervising, for everyone’s emotional safety and also because this is my flat.”
The knock comes. Lucia opens the door and immediately says, “You look like a haunted lamppost.”
“Good to see you too,” Matteo says.
Then he steps into the guest room doorway. And my heart breaks in a different shape.
He’s bruised along one cheek. A cut near his eyebrow, a white bandage at his temple. His left arm is in a sling. He’s moving carefully, like each step has been negotiated with several angry ribs.
But he is alive.
“Hi,” he says.
I start crying. Because apparently that’s my new hobby. Collecting devastating greetings from injured men.
Matteo takes one step forward. Rocco moves too. Then stops. So does Matteo. They both look at me.
“I’m not a traffic light,” I snap through tears.
Lucia points at both of them. “You heard her. Stop standing there like tragic furniture.”
I hold out my hand to Matteo. He comes to the bed and takes it with his good hand. Bruised knuckles. Small cuts.
“You scared me,” I tell him.
“I’m sorry.”
“Do not apologize for getting stabbed near me. Everyone keeps doing that and it’s very annoying.”
His eyes flick to Rocco, who stands near the chair, fully dressed now, hands loose at his sides. Not happy. Not pretending. But quiet.
Matteo looks back at me. “I’ll try to avoid future stabbing. For you.”
My fingers tighten on his. Rocco’s pain is almost visible. He doesn’t make it my problem. That matters.
Then Rocco says, “You kept her alive.”
“She kept herself alive,” Matteo says.
“Yes,” Rocco says. No argument. “You helped when I didn’t.”
Matteo’s mouth flattens. “Yes.”
“Thank you,” Rocco says.
Matteo looks away first. Not because he’s weak. Because what do you do with gratitude from the man who’s the reason you had to be there?
“I should go,” Rocco says.
My head snaps toward him. “Why?”
“Because this conversation shouldn’t happen under my shadow.”
I want him to stay. I want him to go. I want someone to make one decision for me, except I just got a stack of legal papers specifically designed so that no one can.
“Don’t leave the building,” I say.
Rocco goes still. “Okay.”
Do I mean I want him nearby because Rafe’s a threat? Yes. Do I mean I want him nearby because after sex and papers and tears I can’t handle him walking out like the old days? Also yes.
“And take a biscuit,” I say. “You lost blood.”
Lucia holds out the packet with the expression of a woman handing ammunition to an idiot. He takes one. “Thank you.”
“Do not bleed on my hallway,” she says.
Then he looks at me. Just for a second. Long enough to ask without words. I nod.
He leaves the guest room and closes the door behind him. Not fully. He leaves it cracked.
Matteo lowers himself into the chair with a careful grimace.
“You should be in bed,” I say.
“So should you.” He nods at the papers. “He gave you power?”
“I think so.”
“Good.”
“You don’t have to say that.”
“I mean it. That makes it worse.”
Really look at him. At the bruises, the sling, the man who walked away from Rocco’s world and still got dragged back onto its knives because of me.
He says the things he said in the hospital. That he loves me. That he knows I love Rocco. That he wants me to choose him anyway. None of it’s new. All of it still costs.
“I can’t,” I whisper. “Not because you’re not enough.”
“I know.”
“I need to know I can choose Rocco without it meaning I chose wrong before.”
Matteo is silent. Then he nods. “You didn’t choose wrong by surviving.”
That breaks me. I put my hands over my face and cry. Matteo doesn’t touch me until I reach for him. Then he takes my hand again. Lightly. Enough that I can pull away.
“I don’t want to lose you,” I say.
“You might. Not because I’m punishing you. Because I don’t know how to stay close and not keep hoping.”
“Then go if you need to.” The words taste terrible. But I say them. Because I can’t ask him to bleed just because his bleeding makes me feel safer.
He nods. Slow. Bruised jaw held level, sling and all, handing me the door so I won’t have to be the one who shuts it.
“But if you can stay—” My voice breaks. “I want you to. Not as proof. Not as a weapon. Not to make Rocco suffer.”
“Then why?”
I put my hand on my stomach. The baby moves under my palm. Small. Certain.
“Because Rafe is coming. Because Lucia is one woman with biscuits and a temper. Because Rocco is trying, but his world is still dangerous. Because when everything broke, you were there. I don’t know how to pretend that doesn’t matter.”
Matteo looks down at our hands. Then toward the cracked door. Rocco is out there. Near. Staying because I asked.
“Until when?” Matteo asks.
I know what he means. If he stays, there has to be a line. Not forever. Not an emotional purgatory with security rotations.
My hand curves over the baby. There’s only one answer that feels right and awful.
“Until the baby comes,” I say.
Matteo’s breath catches. Lucia goes quiet by the dresser. Out in the hall, a floorboard creaks once.
Rocco. Maybe. Probably.
I don’t look. I keep my eyes on Matteo.
“Please,” I whisper. “Stay until the baby comes.”