Chapter 9
Chapter Nine
Maya
The first rule of avoiding a man is not to know where he is.
I break that rule before breakfast.
Stefano is in the east corridor, speaking to Omar near the base of the stairs, and I know this because I hear his voice before I see him.
Low. Controlled. Too calm to carry, and somehow still impossible to miss.
I stop halfway down the landing with one hand on the banister and tell myself I am being tactical.
Listening matters. Information matters. If Stefano is talking to Omar, there may be something useful buried between all that Italian restraint and mutual disapproval.
That is the lie I choose.
The truth is worse.
The truth is that my body recognizes his voice before my brain can tell it not to.
I see him through the break in the railing.
Black suit. White shirt. No tie this morning, which should not matter and immediately does.
One hand in his pocket, the other holding a phone he is not looking at because Omar has his attention.
His face is turned slightly away from me, showing the bruise along his cheekbone, darker at the edges now, fading slowly where my hand left proof that I had once been smart enough to hit him instead of kiss him.
My mouth remembers the kiss at the exact moment I tell it not to.
Heat crawls up my throat.
Absolutely not.
I turn around before either of them can look up.
Then I take the long way to the children’s sitting room like a reasonable adult who definitely has control over her own body and is absolutely not avoiding the mafia don whose tongue was in her mouth two nights ago.
By the time I reach the children, I am irritated enough to blame Stefano for things he has not done.
Erin is on the carpet with a pile of colored pencils, three picture books, and a stuffed rabbit someone in this house has decided makes the room child-friendly instead of hostage-adjacent.
Heath sits in the chair closest to the window with one knee tucked up, a book open in his lap and his attention on the door.
Always the door.
That is the first thing I noticed about him after the shock of seeing Alice in his face wore off.
Heath never fully enters a room. Part of him stays at the exit.
Part of him counts steps. Part of him keeps Erin in reach at all times, as if his body has decided being eight years old is irrelevant when no adult can be trusted to stand between his sister and harm.
Erin looks up when I walk in and immediately smiles.
“You came back.”
The words hit in a place I have not built armor around yet.
“I said I would.”
“People say lots of stuff.”
That comes from Heath, not Erin.
He doesn't look up from the book.
I cross the room slowly and sit on the floor near the edge of Erin’s colored-pencil empire. Not too close to Heath. Not too far. With him, distance is a negotiation, and I am starting to understand that winning means letting him think I am not trying to.
“They do,” I say. “That’s why doing it matters more.”
Heath turns a page.
It is upside down.
I do not point that out.
Erin scoots closer to me on the carpet, all knees and elbows and bright, fragile interest. “Omar said you couldn’t come before breakfast.”
“Omar says many sad things.”
“He said rules exist for a reason.”
“Omar also believes couches aren’t hostile, so his judgment is questionable.”
That earns me the smallest sound from Heath.
Not a laugh.
Not even close.
But not nothing.
I take it.
Erin holds up the stuffed rabbit. “We named him Mr. Buttons.”
“That is a very serious name.”
“Heath wanted to name him Knife.”
I glance at Heath.
He still doesn't look up. “It was funny.”
“It was odd,” Erin says.
“Rabbits have teeth.”
I keep my face solemn. “He has a point.”
Erin gasps like I have betrayed her personally. Heath’s mouth almost moves.
Almost.
I decide I will chase that almost-smile for the rest of the day if I have to. So I lean into it.
For most of the morning, I let Erin teach me the complex laws of her drawings, which appear to involve animals with the wrong number of legs, houses with no doors, and trees full of what she insists are birds but look suspiciously like knives with wings.
Heath reads from his upside-down book until he gets bored pretending, then moves to the floor near the table, not beside me, but close enough to correct Erin when she announces that horses have six legs if they are running fast.
“They don’t,” he says.
“They could.”
“No.”
“You don’t know everything.”
“I know horses don’t grow extra legs because they’re excited.”
I look at her drawing. “Maybe this one is very motivated.”
Heath gives me a look.
It is such an Alice look that I have to glance down before grief has time to show on my face.
He catches that too.
“Did Mom draw?” Erin asks.
The question comes softly, but it lands like a hand closing around my ribs.
“Yes,” I say.
Erin’s eyes widen. “Was she good?”
“She was better than me.”
Omar makes a sound from the doorway that is definitely a laugh poorly disguised as a cough.
I turn. “Are you choking?”
“No.”
“Shame.”
He looks toward the ceiling for patience. “The two of you are becoming a problem.”
“The two of us?” Heath asks.
Omar’s expression goes briefly blank, as if he has just realized he included the child in an alliance against him.
Erin beams. “We’re a team.”
“No,” Omar says.
“Too late,” I tell him.
Heath looks down before anyone can see too much of his face, but I see enough.
A smile.
Small. Quick. Gone almost before it exists.
Still real.
I do not know why that one nearly ruins me.
Maybe because children should smile easily. Maybe because Heath doesn't. Maybe because Alice had spent the last years of her life trapped with Leon O’Reilly, and her son learned how to become a wall before he learned how to feel safe inside a room.
I spend the day pretending I am not watching for Stefano and failing less as the hours pass.
The children help. Erin talks constantly. Attention. Answers. More juice. Help with a braid. A story about Alice. Another story. A promise I cannot make and make anyway by not refusing fast enough.
Heath needs nothing.
Which means Heath needs more.
I learn that quickly.
He doesn't ask for food, but eats if a plate is left near him and no one comments.
He doesn't ask where the bathroom is, but remembers every turn the first time Omar shows him.
He doesn't ask whether the guards outside are there to keep people in or out, but he watches them whenever the door opens.
He doesn't ask whether Leon knows where they are until late afternoon, when Erin is asleep against a pillow on the couch and Omar has stepped into the hall to answer a call.
“Does he?” Heath asks.
I look up from the book Erin abandoned in my lap. “Does who what?”
He is by the window again, staring through the glass at the lawn below. His reflection looks pale and small against all that expensive green. “Does Dad know where we are?”
“No.”
“How do you know?”
“Because if he did, the house would feel different.”
That pulls his gaze to me. “Different how?”
“Louder. Tighter. Men like Omar would look more annoyed.”
“Omar always looks annoyed.”
“More annoyed than usual.”
He considers that.
Then, “Would Stefano tell us?”
I do not answer fast enough.
Heath notices.
I close the book. “I don’t know.”
“You don’t trust him.”
“No.”
“But you’re helping him.”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
Because I made a deal with a monster.
Because your father is worse.
Because Stefano kissed me like he could burn every lie out of my mouth, and for one awful second, I let him.
I choose the answer that belongs to Heath.
“Because right now, Stefano’s danger is pointed at your father.”
Heath looks back out the window. “That can change.”
“Yes,” I say, because lying to him would insult both of us.
His shoulders tighten.
“But if it does, I’ll be between you and him too.”
He turns on me so quickly Erin stirs on the couch.
“You can’t promise that.”
“I can promise I’ll try.”
“That’s not the same.”
“No,” I say. “It isn’t.”
For a second, I think he will shut down completely. I watch the wall go up behind his eyes, brick by brick, every bit of it familiar. Some children cry when they are scared. Some cling. Some rage.
Some become very, very still.
Heath goes still.
Then he says, “People who try can still leave.”
I do not know what to do with that except bleed quietly where he cannot see.
“Yes,” I say. “They can.”
That answer doesn't fix anything.
Maybe that is why he doesn't look away.
Night comes too slowly.
By the time the children are supposed to sleep, Erin has fought her own exhaustion with the dramatic determination of a tiny martyr.
She refuses the bed in the room prepared for them because Heath is still in the sitting room, and Heath refuses the bedroom because Erin might need something, and Omar looks like he has considered requesting a transfer to an active warzone for the peace.
“No one is separating you,” I say for the fourth time.
Erin’s lower lip wobbles. “But what if we fall asleep?”
“Then you’ll wake up in the same place.”
Heath says nothing.
That silence answers for him.
I glance toward Omar. “Can they sleep in here tonight?”
Omar’s eyebrows lift. “In the sitting room?”
“Yes.”
“That is not what this room is for.”
“It has couches. They sit. They sleep. The room can evolve.”
“This is not my decision.”
“Then call Stefano.”
He looks at me like I have suggested summoning a plague. “No.”
“Afraid?”
“Practical.”
“Same thing, in your case.”
He stares at me for three long seconds.
Then he steps into the hall and makes the call.
Erin immediately looks impressed. “You made him call Stefano?”
“I annoyed him into making a good choice.”
Heath watches the doorway.
When Omar returns, he looks even more irritated, which tells me everything before he speaks.
“The Don says one night.”
“One night,” I agree.
Omar points at me. “Do not look pleased.”
“I would never.”
“You are doing it now.”
“I have a naturally triumphant face.”
Heath almost smiles again.
Worth it.