Chapter Twenty-Seven
Luis
No one told me Dario Moretti was a real menace to society. I figured that out approximately three minutes after being in the same room as him.
The Moretti house is unusually calm tonight, or at least calmer than usual. Voices drift through the halls from other rooms, mixed with distant footsteps and the occasional sound of someone yelling across the house for something they've misplaced.
It's chaos.
Good chaos.
It's different from mine. I grew up an only child, so the Romero estate was always quieter compared to this. The Morettis have nine kids in this house now, and I genuinely don't understand how Rafael and Bianca are still sane.
The movie theatre is warm, dimly lit by the soft lights built into the walls.
Matteo is sprawled across one side of the couch, scrolling through his phone, while Luca is stretched across an armchair opposite him, looking half asleep.
Leonardo sits nearby with his arms folded, his expression naturally irritated despite nothing having happened yet.
I'm sitting with them, only half paying attention to the film playing quietly in the background.
The second the doors swing open, all of us look up.
Dario walks into the room with a smile that immediately sets off alarms in my head. It's too innocent, the kind of smile people wear after they've committed crimes and gotten away with them.
He climbs onto the sofa beside Matteo without invitation, kneeling backwards against the cushions as he stares directly at me. His dark curls are messy, like he's been running around the house for hours, and there's something suspiciously glittery near the sleeve of his tiny hoodie.
“Who are you?” he asks bluntly.
Before I can answer, Matteo speaks without looking up from his phone.
“That's Luis. He's my best friend.”
Dario blinks once before slowly turning towards Matteo, genuine shock written across his face.
“Woah,” he says seriously. “You have friends?”
Luca nearly chokes on his drink. Leonardo lets out an actual laugh, which seems rare enough to qualify as a historical event, and even I feel my mouth twitch.
Matteo slowly lowers his phone and stares at his little brother like he's questioning every decision that's brought him here.
“I'm going to pretend you didn't say that.”
Dario grins proudly.
“DARIO!”
Rafael's voice echoes through the house, loud enough to make everyone in the room pause.
Dario gasps dramatically before throwing himself behind the sofa. Small, muffled giggles instantly fill the room.
Leonardo closes his eyes briefly and pinches the bridge of his nose. “What did you do now?”
More muffled laughter answers him.
Honestly, that's somehow worse than a confession.
Heavy footsteps approach from somewhere down the hallway before Rafael appears in the doorway, looking exhausted already. His dark hair is slightly dishevelled, his sleeves rolled to his elbows, and there's glitter clinging to one shoulder.
He scans the room.
“Where's Dario?”
Another barely contained laugh comes from behind the sofa.
Rafael closes his eyes for a brief second, as though he's trying to summon patience, before walking further into the room.
The second he reaches the back of the sofa, Dario lets out a dramatic scream and runs.
Tiny footsteps thunder across the floor as he bolts from the room, Rafael immediately going after him.
“GET BACK HERE!”
“You have old legs!” Dario yells between hysterical giggles. “Catch up!”
I stare after them for a second before looking back at the others.
“...Does this happen often?”
“Daily,” Matteo says flatly.
“Hourly,” Luca corrects.
From somewhere deeper in the house, another loud scream echoes, followed immediately by childish laughter.
Leonardo pushes himself to his feet with a sigh. “We should probably see what he did.”
The four of us head towards Rafael's office while the distant yelling continues upstairs.
The moment Leonardo pushes open the door, all of us stop.
There is glitter everywhere.
It coats the desk, shelves, leather couch and floor, sparkling beneath the lights.
I genuinely don't understand how one small child managed this.
Luca walks further into the room, staring around in disbelief. “How is this physically possible?”
Leonardo looks down at the glitter stuck to his shoes. “I hate him.”
“You adore him,” Matteo replies immediately.
“That's irrelevant.”
My attention shifts towards the large office windows overlooking the gardens. Writing is smeared across the glass in thick, uneven letters.
DARIO WAS HERE.
Tiny fingerprints surround the words where he clearly pressed his hands against the window.
Luca bursts out laughing. Matteo follows a heartbeat later, while even Leonardo looks dangerously close to smiling.
I glance around the office one more time before leaning against the doorway.
“No wonder Rafael looks tired all the time.”
As if perfectly timed, Dario's voice echoes triumphantly from upstairs.
“YOU'LL NEVER CATCH ME!”
A loud crash follows, immediately followed by Rafael shouting his name again.
Matteo sighs deeply. “Yeah,” he mutters. “That sounds about right.”
By the time everyone settles into the living room, conversations overlap beneath the warm lighting while someone wrestles with the television remote. Bianca's candles do nothing to disguise the fact that Rafael's office is still covered in glitter.
I only discover the full story when Rafael points accusingly across the room at his wife.
“You gave him the glitter.”
Bianca doesn't even pretend to deny it.
“He asked nicely.”
“He destroyed my office.”
“He expressed himself creatively.”
“Bianca.”
A quiet laugh escapes her as she shrugs.
“You have to admit,” she says, “he's keeping us on our toes.”
Dante lets out an amused snort from where he's stretched across one of the armchairs.
“Please. All your kids have taken turns making you go grey over the years. It's Sabrina and Dario's turn now.”
Laughter ripples around the room.
Rafael points dramatically towards him. “I blame every single one of you.”
“Bit late for that,” Luca replies lazily from the sofa. “The grey hair's already happened.”
Rafael ignores him, his attention settling on Sabrina.
She's smirking.
“Oh no.”
Her smile widens.
“Sabrina,” he says cautiously, “I'm begging you not to do anything that'll send me fully grey.”
She glances up from where Dario is curled against her side.
“Then don't look at my criminal record.”
The room goes silent.
Then Dante folds over laughing. Matteo nearly chokes trying not to laugh, Luca throws his head back against the sofa, and even Bianca has to hide her smile.
Rafael rubs a hand over his face.
“I really thought I was done surviving childhood chaos. Then you and Dario came along.”
“Skill issue,” Dante mutters.
Rafael points at him. “Sometimes I wonder why I bothered raising any of you.”
“You love us, really.”
“I tolerate you.”
Carlo nods thoughtfully. “That's basically love.”
“It is not.”
“It absolutely is.”
Rafael exhales through his nose before deciding the conversation isn't worth the effort. The room settles again, laughter fading into smaller conversations as everyone returns to whatever they were talking about before the glitter incident.
It doesn't take long before the conversation drifts onto something far less amusing.
Morana.
“She sliced open his mattress,” Leonardo says, sounding almost impressed despite himself.
“And vandalised the entire room,” Carlo adds. “She wasn't exactly subtle either.”
Dante chuckles. “‘Morana was here’ painted across the wall was a nice touch.”
“A little theatrical,” Luca agrees. “But I'll admit... iconic.”
Matteo snorts quietly.
“Nobody knows how Morana got onto the island,” Rafael says, leaning back. “That's the part that doesn't make sense.”
“She had help,” Matteo says simply.
Bianca considers that for a moment. “Or she's just smarter than all of you.”
Carlo grimaces. “That's somehow less comforting.”
Dante glances across at Matteo. “How's Elias taking it?”
A grin immediately spreads across Matteo's face.
“Badly.”
“He blames Valeria,” Luca says.
I look at him. “For what?”
“He thinks Valeria knows who Morana is,” Matteo explains. “Apparently, Morana only came after him because of her.”
That catches my attention. Elias shouldn't know why Morana targeted him unless he'shiding something.
Rafael seems to reach the same conclusion.
“And when Theo asked him why Morana would specifically target him,” Matteo continues, “he went completely silent.”
That earns a round of amused reactions from around the room. Apparently, Elias Nikolouchoosing not to speak qualifies as a miracle.
“He definitely knows more than he's saying,” Leonardo says.
“No one trashes someone's room like that for no reason,” Carlo adds. “She was making a point.”
“Honestly,” Dante says, leaning back comfortably into the sofa, “he probably deserved worse.”
Nobody argues.
Not after the dinner incident.
Rafael eventually pinches the bridge of his nose.
“I don't like admitting it,” he says, “but Bianca might actually be right.”
“I'm always right.”
“You absolutely are not.”
“I usually am.”
“You've encouraged glitter terrorism today.”
“I supported artistic expression.”
“You aided and abetted a tiny criminal.”
Dario gasps dramatically.
“I'm not tiny.”
The room erupts into laughter.
He turns to Sabrina. “He's being mean.”
She finally looks up from the book she's been reading.
“Apologise to the child.”
Rafael stares at her. “He covered my office in glitter.”
“He expressed himself creatively.”
Bianca snorts into her drink.
Rafael sighs. “I'm surrounded by enablers.”
The room dissolves into laughter once again.
My attention drifts to the opposite end of the sofa.
Dario is sprawled across Sabrina's lap, one arm hooked loosely around her waist as he quietly tells her another of his endless stories. Judging by the way his hands slice through the air every few seconds, whatever he's describing must be incredibly important.
Sabrina listens without interrupting. Every so often, she asks a quiet question or nods for him to continue, giving him her full attention despite the conversation around them.
Then he says something that makes absolutely no sense.
At least, not to anyone else.
The corner of Sabrina's mouth lifts into the faintest smile.
It's small enough that most people probably wouldn't notice it.
I do.
The guarded expression she carries almost everywhere softens without her seeming to realise it. The sharpness in her features eases, and for just a moment, the weight behind her grey eyes seems lighter.
She doesn't become a different person.
She simply becomes softer.
It's subtle and entirely unintentional.
I glance around the room and realise I'm not the only one who's noticed.
Nobody comments on it.
They all see the way Dario instinctively reaches for her whenever she's close, the way she brushes his hair from his eyes or rests a hand on his shoulder without thinking, always checking he's there before returning to whatever she was doing.
Most of all, they see the way he looks at her.
There's no hesitation. No fear. Just complete trust.
It's the kind of trust that can only be earned.
Whatever Sabrina Moretti is to the rest of the world, to Dario, she is something much simpler.
She's home.