Chapter Twenty-Five
LUCIA
The keys Marco gave me sit on my nightstand for three days before I use them.
There are four.
One opens the front door.
One opens the gates.
One belongs to a car I haven’t seen.
The smallest unlocks the former offices of Rossi Imports.
I know because each key has been labeled in Marco's precise handwriting.
The brass tag attached to the last one reads:
ROSSI BUILDING
14 PRINCE STREET
I turn it over in my palm.
The building appears in the trust documents. Four stories of brick and narrow windows in the North End, only a few streets from Vesuvio.
My grandfather purchased it more than forty years ago.
My mother inherited it.
Now it belongs to me.
I’ve never seen it.
I slip the key into my pocket and head downstairs.
Armando is eating breakfast at the kitchen table. His phone rests beside his plate, and a newspaper has been folded into a neat square near his elbow.
Angela stands at the island, arguing with Gio about whether a croissant qualifies as a complete meal.
“It has butter,” he says.
“That isn’t a food group.”
“It’s dairy.”
“It’s not enough dairy to save you.”
Angela raises the wooden spoon.
Gio sees me and points.
“Lucy, explain nutrition to her.”
“I’m on Angela’s side.”
“Betrayal before nine in the morning,” he mutters.
“You’ll survive.”
Angela smiles and places a cup of coffee in front of me.
I’ve been home for four days.
She still watches me enter every room as though confirming I’m real.
I take the chair across from Armando.
“I want to go into the city.”
His fork stops.
Gio looks over.
“Where?”
“The Rossi building on Prince Street.”
“I’ll take you.”
I expected the offer, and a part of me wants to accept.
Gio makes everything easier. He fills uncomfortable silences and knows when to distract me before a memory becomes too sharp.
But the keys in my pocket belong to me, and this decision should too.
“I’d like to go alone.”
His expression changes.
“Alone alone?”
“With security,” I clarify. “But without you or Marco.”
Gio looks relieved and disappointed in equal measure.
“That seems maddeningly reasonable.”
Armando wipes his mouth and places his napkin beside the plate.
“When?”
“Today.”
“Give me an hour.”
“Why?”
“To arrange a car and a team.”
“How many people?”
“Six.”
“No.”
He studies me.
“How many?”
“Two.”
“No.”
“I’m not asking for an invasion.”
“And I’m not sending you into the North End with two men.”
“My grandfather ran half the neighborhood.”
“Your grandfather is dead.”
The bluntness catches me off guard.
Armando’s expression softens.
“Which means we don’t know who considers you family and who considers you an opportunity.”
“Three.”
“Four.”
“Three, including you.”
He thinks.
“One vehicle follows us.”
“Discreetly.”
“Yes.”
“No one clears the building before I enter.”
His jaw tightens.
“Lucia.”
“If there’s an immediate threat, tell me. Otherwise, I want to walk into my own building without armed men sweeping through it first.”
“What if someone is inside?”
“Is the building occupied?”
“The ground-floor shop is leased. Two apartments are rented. The upper floor and offices are empty.”
“Then anyone inside has a reason to be there.”
“Not necessarily.”
“Three men. One trailing car. No advance team.”
Armando looks at Gio.
“Don’t involve me,” Gio says. “I’m enjoying this.”
“Do we have an agreement?” I ask.
Armando exhales.
“Yes.”
The answer sends a small thrill through me.
Not because I won.
Because he listened.
“Thank you.”
“I want to leave in forty-five minutes.”
“You said an hour.”
“I changed my mind.”
I smile.
“So can I.”
He almost smiles back.
Marco enters as Armando leaves to make the arrangements.
Conversation fades.
It still happens every time he walks into a room with me.
The others don’t mean to do it.
Neither do I.
Marco notices anyway.
He pours coffee.
“What happened?”
“Nothing,” Gio says.
Marco looks at me.
I twist the small key inside my pocket.
“I’m visiting the Rossi building.”
“Today?”
“Yes.”
He looks toward the doorway Armando just used.
“Armando is arranging security?”
“I chose the security.”
Something shifts in Marco’s expression.
“Good.”
That’s all.
No questions about the route. No demand for additional men. No offer to accompany me.
I should be relieved.
Instead, I’m faintly irritated.
“Do you think it’s a bad idea?”
“No.”
“Do you think it’s dangerous?”
“Possibly.”
“But you aren’t going to tell me not to go.”
“No.”
“Why?”
His gaze holds mine over the rim of his cup.
“Because you already decided.”
The answer eases something inside me.
It also makes me angrier about how much I appreciate it.
“Will you be home for dinner?” he asks.
“I don’t know.”
“Angela needs to know.”
Angela looks over from the stove.
“No, I don’t.”
Marco gives her a look.
She turns her back on him.
“I’ll let her know,” I say.
He nods.
Then he takes his coffee and leaves without asking anything else.
Gio watches him go.
“He’s trying.”
“I know.”
The phrase leaves my mouth before I realize it.
Gio grins.
I point at him.
“Don’t.”
He raises both hands.
“I didn’t say anything.”
“You were going to.”
“Probably.”
Armando brings one of the smaller SUVs around forty minutes later.
Dario sits in front. A second vehicle waits down the drive, far enough away that it doesn’t feel like part of a convoy.
Armando opens the rear door for me.
We drive into Boston.
For the first fifteen minutes, I watch every vehicle in the mirrors.
The habit returns too easily.
Armando notices but doesn’t tell me everything is fine. He gives me information instead.
“The gray sedan has been behind us since Belmont. That’s Bruno.”
I nod.
“The truck two cars back turns off in half a mile.”
“How do you know?”
“It’s signaling.”
I look.
The right indicator blinks.
“Anyone else?”
“No.”
The truck turns.
My shoulders relax.
Traffic thickens as we reach the city. Buildings press closer to the streets. People fill the sidewalks carrying coffee, shopping bags, and conversations that have nothing to do with who controls the port.
I lower the window.
Warm, humid air enters the SUV.
Armando glances back.
“Too much?”
“No.”
I want to smell the city.
Bread from a bakery. Exhaust. Coffee. The faint salt of the harbor carried between buildings.
The city I escaped into barefoot.
The city I’ve inherited part of without knowing it.
The Rossi building stands between a bakery and a narrow shop selling leather goods.
ROSSI IMPORTS remains painted across the brick above the ground floor. The white lettering has faded almost to gray, and several letters are partially hidden behind an old metal fire escape.
I step out of the SUV.
No one rushes to surround me.
Dario stands near the curb. Armando remains several paces behind. Bruno parks half a block away.
Exactly what I requested.
I stand on the sidewalk and look up.
The building is narrower than I imagined. Four uneven rows of windows rise above the shop, their dark green frames chipped by years of weather. A carved stone R remains above the side entrance, nearly hidden beneath grime.
It isn’t impressive.
It’s mine.
The ground floor belongs to a small grocery. Crates of oranges and tomatoes sit beneath the front windows. Strings of dried peppers hang inside the glass.
Bells jingle when I enter.
The shop smells of coffee, cured meat, and the sharp green leaves packed around the tomatoes. Shelves rise almost to the ceiling, crowded with tins, jars, and handwritten signs.
An elderly man behind the counter looks up from a newspaper.
“Can I help you?”
“I’m looking for the building manager.”
“You found him.”
I take the key from my pocket.
“My name is Lucia Rossi.”
Romanova almost follows.
Then Catenzio.
I choose the name that belonged to my mother.
The man slowly removes his glasses.
“Maria’s girl?”
My throat tightens.
“You knew her?”
He comes around the counter.
He is short and slightly stooped, with white hair combed carefully over his scalp. A pale scar crosses the back of one hand, and his cardigan has been repaired at one elbow with thread that doesn’t quite match.
His eyes move over my face.
“Madonna,” he whispers. “You look like her.”
No one has ever said that to me.
“My name is Enzo Bellini.”
He takes my hand between both of his.
“I managed this building for your grandfather. Then your mother.”
He locks the register and calls through a curtain behind the counter.
A woman answers in Italian.
“My wife will watch the shop,” he explains. “Come. I’ll show you.”
A narrow staircase rises behind the grocery.
The steps tilt slightly toward the middle, worn smooth by decades of feet. The smell of the shop follows us to the second floor before giving way to old wood, steam heat, and someone’s garlic-heavy lunch.
Two apartments occupy the landing.
Enzo knows the tenants, their children, and precisely how often each complains about the plumbing.
“Mrs. Ricci says the pipes knock.”
“Do they?”
“Only when her grandson takes a shower for forty minutes.”
He continues upward.
The third floor is empty.
Dust dulls the floorboards. Three doors stand open, revealing offices stripped of most furniture. Rectangles of cleaner paint show where pictures and shelves once hung.
The last door remains closed.
Enzo removes a crowded ring of keys from his pocket.
“This was your mother’s.”
He unlocks it.
The room smells of dust, old paper, and the lemon oil someone once used on the furniture.
A large desk faces the windows. Shelves cover one wall. Filing cabinets line another.
Unlike the bedroom Viktor chose for me, this room contains pieces of Maria.
A faded silk scarf hangs over the back of a chair.
A chipped coffee cup sits beside the window, its rim marked with a thin brown stain that never washed away.
A small glass horse rests on the desk.
I pick it up.
The glass is cool and heavier than it looks. One of the horse’s ears has broken off.
“She collected these.”
Enzo smiles.
“Every city she visited, she bought one.”
“I remember.”
The memory appears suddenly.
A row of glass animals on a shelf in our first house. My mother lifting me so I could choose which one she would dust.
I always chose the horse.
I close my fingers around it.