Chapter 12 Lucy
CHAPTER TWELVE
LUCY
Ilinger at the edge of the bed, running my fingers over the sheets.
The penthouse feels like its own country beyond these doors, and with every step away from where we slept, the feeling that I might belong here starts to fade, dissolving like sugar in hot water.
Alessio let me sleep in until almost noon.
The windows stretch from floor to ceiling, and the breakfast sunlight bounces off the Hudson so brightly it hurts.
His sheets smell of fresh laundry mixed with the trace of his body.
I move carefully, each step reminding me of last night: purple fingerprints on my hips, tender spots that ache when I shift, and a deep, pleasant soreness with every movement.
He’s still on his phone, voice low. I catch him mid-sentence: “three, not two, and I want it finished by Friday.” Then he notices me in the doorway, wearing only his shirt and knee socks.
Alessio looks me over from head to toe, not bothering to hide it. He gives a small nod, ends his call, and motions for me to come closer with a single, commanding gesture. “Come here, Lucia.”
I do as he asks. I sit on the edge of the mattress, watching his hands as he sends one last message, then move into his lap. He wraps his arm around my waist and pulls me close, as if I’m something valuable he wants to enjoy fully.
“You said noon,” I remind him.
“It’s noon somewhere,” he says, and kisses the hollow at my collarbone.
I lean my head on his shoulder, letting the familiarity of it wrap around me. “You’re really moving me in?”
He laughs, and this time it’s not sharp. “I told you. You’re mine now. Unless you want out?”
I should leave. Every logical part of me says, "Run." But instead, I just shake my head and let his hand rest, heavy and warm, on my bare thigh.
“Thought so,” he says, and bites my ear. “Let’s show you the rest of the place.”
The penthouse is larger than my father’s Manhattan house and feels much more alive.
The living room is filled with Italian leather and dark stone, and a wall of bookshelves holds worn hardcovers with gold accents.
Art fills the space: rough sculptures, moody street photos, and an oil painting I remember from MoMA, now marked with a few bullet holes for effect.
The kitchen is another world: white subway tile, polished steel, and the stink of real olive oil, garlic, and simmering tomato.
A woman is hunched over the stove, ladling deep red sauce from a battered Dutch oven.
She’s old enough to be my mother, face mapped in creases, a neat black chignon pinned high on her head.
She wears a crisp white apron and a necklace of cheap red beads.
“Chiara,” Alessio says, “this is Lucia. She’s the lady of the house now.”
Chiara looks me up and down. Not disapproving, exactly—just curious, like she’s trying to fit me into a recipe. Her voice is pure Naples, warm and crackling: “Lady, is it? You look like you need a good meal and a long nap.”
Alessio laughs and squeezes my hand. “She’s moving in. Anything she wants, she gets.”
Chiara winks at me. “Even if she wants to cook for herself?”
I step forward, letting myself blush a little. “If you’ll let me.”
Chiara pats me on the back so hard I almost stumble. “Molto bene. Put this on and be careful not to burn yourself.” She hands me a navy apron. “Men always have too many opinions in this kitchen. I like a girl who wants to help.”
Alessio says, “I’ll be back in an hour. You two—behave.” Then he fake-salutes the old woman and disappears down the hall.
For a minute, Chiara and I just stand, stirring sauce in tandem.
Steam rises between us, carrying the scent of basil and garlic.
When I compliment her technique, she snorts: "Girls these days, they think a kitchen is for photoshoots.
" Her knife comes down in three swift, precise motions, reducing a red pepper to perfect half-moons.
Not a seed spilled. "You cook?" she asks, eyes never leaving the cutting board.
“I try,” I say. “My parents never let me use the stove. Said I’d burn down the house.”
“They were fools.” Chiara shoves a wooden spoon into my hand and gestures at the pot. “Taste. More salt?”
I bring the spoon to my lips, close my eyes. It tastes like sunlight, tart and bright and a little sweet. “Perfect,” I whisper.
“Mmm.” Chiara nods, approves. “Put your heart in, always. Food knows.”
We work side by side. I chop onions in time with her, clean the counters, and try not to stare when she tastes the sauce with her fingers, without hesitation.
When the sauce is just right, she turns down the heat, filling the room with gentle steam.
She makes three cups of espresso and pours the last one into a chipped mug for herself.
My phone vibrates for the fourth time in the past 10 minutes. I ignore it, but Chiara doesn’t miss a thing. “He said you’re important,” she says. “So why do you look like the sauce just spoiled?”
I hesitate, then set my phone face-up on the counter. The screen is a parade of missed calls: Dad, Dad, Dad, my brother’s lawyer, my Aunt Ginny.
“My father found out I left home,” I say. “And he’s not happy.”
Chiara shrugs. “No fathers are happy. That is their job. Maybe someday they'll get over it.” She sips espresso, then locks eyes with me. “But you—what do you want?”
I want to belong to myself. To wake up every morning in that bed, to never again have to tiptoe around my own house. To have a daughter one day and teach her to scramble eggs while the world is asleep.
I don’t say any of this. I just shrug back.
“That’s the thing,” Chiara says, and for a moment she looks sad. “You can have anything in this house. Except peace.”
At that, she bustles off to set the dining table, leaving me with a strange, floating sense of being let into a secret I don’t understand.
I walk back into the living room, my phone buzzing in my hand, and look out the window.
The city below looks like a mosaic, with small lives stacked in glass boxes and stories unfolding behind every lit window.
Up here, even the traffic seems slow and careful.
I count the minutes until Alessio comes back and wonder if I belong here or if I’m still just a guest.
The kitchen smells like a Sunday, full of bread, basil, and tomato—the familiar routines of people who love to cook. I think of my mom and grandmother. They would hate how much I enjoy this, how quickly I fell for someone like Alessio Morrone. They would hate that he makes me feel safe.
“Lucia.” His voice behind me, quiet as a knife. I turn. He’s on the phone, tie loosened, eyes cool and unreadable. He holds up a finger—wait.
I wait.
He finishes the call, then closes the distance between us in three strides. “Is everything okay?”
I could lie, but I don’t: “My father found out I left, and now he’s losing his mind. He says I’m destroying the family.”
Alessio smiles, but it doesn’t reach his eyes. “He can call me if he has something to say. Or he can mind his business. You’re home now.”
I tuck my face into his chest and breathe in peppermint and soap. “I don’t want you to fight my battles, Alessio.”
He tilts my chin up, thumb brushing the dimple in my chin. “That’s the thing about being family, Lucia. Your battles are mine.”
The warmth in me is so strong I nearly start to cry, but I hold it together. Instead, I ask, “Do I really get to redecorate the whole top floor?”
He grins, wolfish. “If you want. But don’t touch my bar, or my gun safe.”
I press my cheek to his chest, secretly memorizing the rhythm of his heartbeat. “Maybe I’ll just add a reading nook or two.”
“Good,” he says, and kisses my forehead.
Lunch is full of contrasts: the food is comforting, but the mood at the table is tense. Chiara brings out the dishes and quickly returns to the kitchen, leaving us alone. I can tell Alessio is distracted, his eyes moving between the window and his phone.
Finally, I say, “You can go. I’ll be fine.”
He gives me a look, half affection, half warning. “You’re not a prisoner, Lucia. But if you leave this apartment, you call me first. Yeah?”
I nod. “Promise.”
He doesn’t kiss me goodbye, just brushes my arm as he leaves. I watch the door close and think about every man I’ve loved before. None of them ever left the front door unlocked for me.
Chiara returns, sits across from me, and starts to shell peas for dinner without looking up. “He’s got a good heart, that one,” she says. “But he’s been at war with himself since before you were born.”
“Why?” I blurt, not meaning to.
She smiles. “That is not my story to tell. You want more sauce?”
I nod, and she piles it on my plate.
I check my phone again: nine missed calls, three voicemails, and two texts. I start to type a message to Dad: I’m fine. Please stop calling me. I’m happy here.
I don’t send it.
Instead, I open the first voicemail and hold the phone to my ear—Dad’s voice, brittle and tight: “Lucinda. I hope you know what you’re doing. I hope you’re safe. Call me, please. I love you.”
I listen to it twice, then delete it. My stomach aches. The smell of basil fills the air, and I wonder if growing up means having to choose which family you let down.
The afternoon unspools quietly. Chiara teaches me how to make dough from nothing but semolina and eggs, shows me how to fold it so thin you can see your hand through it.
She doesn’t ask about Alessio or my father.
She lets me lose myself in the muscle memory of kneading, in the way flour cakes my hands and gets under my nails.
For a while, I’m just a girl in a kitchen, sleeves rolled up, learning how to make something from scratch.
It’s a kind of peace I never knew I wanted.
Voices drift down the hall—two men, low and quick, words shuttling between English and Italian. I freeze, dough stuck to my hands, and listen hard.
Some of the names sound familiar to me: Enzo, Carina, Brighton Beach, Bratva. But Alessio’s voice grows tense and cold.
She's my daughter," he says, voice like ice. "And you're telling me she was in Lukov's lap at some Brooklyn sex club? Where the fuck does that little girl get her nerve?"
"I tried calling her," says the other man quietly, "but she wouldn't—"
"I don't care what you tried, Enzo. Find her. Brooklyn is crawling with Lukov's men, and that bastard has his hands all over my Carina. If you have to drag her away from him, you do it. Today."
Enzo sighs. "What if she doesn't want to leave him?"
A silence thick as honey. Then: “You fucking make her.”
Footsteps approach, and I try to look busy, though my hands are shaking.
Alessio comes in, followed by a younger man who might be his brother, except for the haunted look in his eyes.
Alessio’s face is tense, jaw set and nostrils flared, his old mafia scars clear in the daylight.
I think I see exhaustion in the lines on his forehead, but he hides it well.
“Lucia,” he says. “Come with me, please.”
He doesn’t wait for me to clean my hands and walks quickly through the apartment, with me hurrying after him, leaving a trail of flour behind. Enzo follows, nods at me once, then heads down another hallway. I hear the words “Brooklyn” and “fix it quietly” before his voice disappears.
We stop at a door I haven’t seen before.
Alessio swipes a card, and there’s a soft click.
Inside, it’s not a panic room but a study.
Dark wood, military neat, two massive monitors on the desk cycling through black-and-white security feeds: lobby, street, rooftop, even the elevators.
There’s a wall of old photographs—Alessio as a little boy on some Mediterranean dock, then older, sharper, flanked by men whose eyes look as cold as his, with only time to tell them apart.
Above the desk hangs a single framed photo of a girl: red-haired, blue-eyed, and wild. The light in her grin scorches the air.
He notices my attention and says, “That’s my Carina. My daughter.”
I nod, not knowing if I’m supposed to speak. Instead, I stand there, waiting for him to sit behind the desk, snap his laptop shut, and fix me with that bright, impossible gaze.
He steeples his hands under his chin. “You’re smart. So I won’t lie to you.”
He leans back. “There are people who want to see me ruined, dead, or locked away forever. But even more, some want to use my family as leverage. That includes anyone I care about, Lucia.” He says my name slowly, as if weighing it.
I shift, the floor suddenly tilting. “Why are you telling me this now?”
“Because today you’re part of that,” he says. “You understand?”
I want to say yes. Instead, I watch his hands press flat on the desk, notice the slight tremor in his right pinky, and the blue veins on his wrist. I remember Chiara’s sadness and how she said peace would always be out of reach.
“You’re scared for your daughter,” I say, surprising myself.
His face stays blank, but his jaw flexes once, twice. “She’s young. Thinks she’s immortal. I just found out she’s been playing house with the son of a fucking Bratva boss. Do you know what that means?”
I shake my head. “No.”
His voice drops to a whisper. “It means every single thing I have built can be lost, overnight, if she becomes a pawn. I don’t know if they want her for leverage, for humiliation, or for fun. But I won’t let them use her against me.”
He rises, comes around the desk, and stands two inches in front of me like a closing door. “You are not to leave this apartment unless you are with Enzo or me. Not for coffee, not for air, not to pick up a goddamn fashion magazine. Are we clear?”
His presence is so intense that I can’t even nod. I just look up at his face and, for the first time, see his fear. It isn’t wild or frantic, but something heavier, like a lifelong burden.
“I’m not your daughter,” I whisper.
He closes his eyes, just for a heartbeat. “No. You’re not.” When he opens them, he touches my jaw—so gently I almost start to cry right there—and then, eyes rimmed in old heartbreak, he says, “But you’re the only one I have left who isn’t already at war with me.”
I stand on tiptoe and kiss his cheek, leaving a faint warmth behind. “I’ll be good,” I murmur.
He gives me a tiny push toward the door: “Go. Chiara will keep you company. I’ll call you if I’m not back by morning.”