22. Rocco #3
My wife. The words hang between us because I put them there. Not as a claim. Maybe as a wound. Maybe both.
Matteo leans against the wall. Carefully. His face tightens when his ribs object. His eyes sharpen on me—my buttons, the papers, the charged air of a room I recently left.
I hate that he knows. I grip the chair harder and say nothing.
Matteo looks at my hands. “That hard?” he asks.
“What?”
“Not saying it.”
He’s not smiling now. Neither am I.
“I hate that you love her,” I say. Plain. No point circling the blade.
“I know.”
“I hate that she trusts you.”
“I know that too.”
“I hate that you know the hospital routes.”
“Someone had to.”
That lands where I keep the worst of it. Someone had to learn how to get my pregnant wife to a hospital because I was too busy putting her in a car away from me. My fingers slide off the chair.
Matteo looks at me like he meant it to hurt and isn’t sorry. Good. Maybe I need people who aren’t sorry.
“You’re right,” I say.
“I know.”
“Don’t push it.”
“No.”
We breathe in the damp courtyard. My wife’s above me with our child. My rival’s in front of me with a sling and the moral high ground.
“I hate myself more,” I say.
“For what?”
“For making room for it.” The words scrape on the way out. “For being the reason there was room.”
He looks away. The first time he breaks eye contact. It doesn’t feel like winning. Nothing about this feels like winning.
“Good,” he says. “You should.”
My fist curls. Once. Then opens. Matteo sees. Of course he sees.
“Go on,” he says. “If it helps.”
That almost does it. Not the words. The tone. Like he’d take the punch because part of him thinks he deserves it for loving her.
That enrages me. Not at him. At myself. At this whole rotten line of pain I started with one unbelieving word in our bedroom.
“No,” I say. “I don’t get to make myself feel better on your face.”
He laughs once. Then winces. “Poetic.”
“Don’t accuse me of that.”
For one strange second, we almost like each other. Then we remember the woman upstairs and stop.
“She asked me to stay,” Matteo says. “I’m staying because she asked. Not to get between you.”
“You are between us.”
“Yes.” He looks up at the flat windows. “She loves you.”
The words aren’t a gift. They’re a wound he hands me because he can’t hold it alone. I take them. Carefully. “I know.”
“Don’t say that like you’re entitled to it.”
“I’m not.” The words cost me. “I’m terrified of it.”
That shuts him up. It shuts me up too, because I didn’t plan to say it. But there it is. True.
I’m terrified that Serena loves me. Not because love is weak. Because I know now that love doesn’t protect her from me. Not unless I become the kind of man who protects her from the parts of me that call control care.
Matteo leans back against the wall. “You should be.”
He looks back. Then I laugh. Once. Not happily. But real. It hurts my side. Worth it.
The back door opens. Lucia leans out, holding two mugs. She looks from my face to Matteo’s, then down at our hands. “No blood?”
“No blood,” I say.
“Disappointing but mature.” She hands us each a mug. Tea. No sugar, I assume. I’m not brave enough to ask. “Serena’s resting, which means both of you are going to keep your male brooding outside for at least twenty minutes.”
She points at us both. “This isn’t bonding. I forbid it.” Then she goes back inside.
Matteo and I sit in damp silence with tea neither of us wants. After a minute, he says, “She’s right. This shouldn’t be bonding.”
“Definitely not.”
We drink the tea. It’s terrible. Probably medicinal.
My phone vibrates again. Lewis. I answer. “Tell me.”
His voice is different this time. Tighter. “Package delivered to the front entrance.”
I stand. Matteo stands too. Too fast. He sways once. I catch his good arm before thinking. He freezes. So do I. Then I let go.
“Don’t fall over,” I say.
“Don’t grab me.”
“Then don’t fall over.”
Lewis says in my ear, “Am I interrupting something?”
“No. What package?”
“Small box. No explosive trace. Miriam scanned it from the landing. Addressed to Serena.”
My blood goes cold. “Do not bring it upstairs.”
“Already in the rear alley containment bag.”
“Open on video,” I say. I put the phone on speaker. Matteo moves closer. I let him.
Lewis’s voice comes through with background rustle. “Outer box open. Inside is a white envelope and a hospital bracelet.”
The courtyard drops away beneath my feet. Hospital bracelet.
“Name?” Matteo asks.
Lewis is quiet a moment. “No patient name. Printed label only.” Paper moves. Lewis inhales. “Rocco.”
“Read it.”
“It says, ‘Pretty maternity wing. East entrance has only one camera. Congratulations.’”
Matteo curses under his breath. My hand tightens around the phone. Not enough to break it. Close.
“There’s a photo,” Lewis continues, voice flat. I don’t ask. My body knows before my mind does. “It’s the hospital Serena chose. Taken from across the street. Time stamp from this morning.”
Above us, a floorboard creaks. Serena. Resting. Trusting me to build safety without a cage.
Rafe knows which hospital she plans to use. And the baby hasn’t even been born yet.