Chapter 23 Lupo
I know something's wrong the moment I see the truck.
It's parked at an angle, like Isabella pulled in fast and didn't care about straightening it. The driver's door is still open.
My pace quickens. By the time I reach the house, I'm nearly running.
She's in the kitchen, pacing, her hands shaking. When she sees me, relief floods her face.
"Lupo. Thank God."
"What happened?" I'm already scanning the room, looking for threats. "Is Elena okay?"
"She's fine. She's in her room. But—" She stops, pressing her hands to her face. "They found him. They found the car."
Everything in me goes very, very calm.
This is the response I've been trained for. I know that now. Whatever I was before, I was someone who dealt with crisis. Who stayed level when everyone else panicked.
"Tell me exactly what you heard."
She tells me about the two men at the market, talking about hikers finding a car in a ravine. A body inside. Dead for weeks. They're working on identification.
When she finishes, she's trembling. "We need to leave. We need to pack up and—"
"No." I take her hands, stilling them. "Calm down. We don't need to run. Not yet. Maybe not at all."
"But they found him. They'll identify the car, trace it to Draco, figure out he came here—"
"That will take time. Weeks, maybe months. A decomposed body doesn't give up its secrets easily." I lead her to a chair, making her sit. "And even if they identify him, there's nothing connecting him to us. Nothing connecting us to that car."
"How can you be sure?"
"Because I was careful." The words come easily. Too easily. "I wiped down everything. The steering wheel, the door handles, the gear shift. Anything I might have touched. I used my shirt sleeve to push the car, so no palm prints. No fingerprints anywhere."
She stares at me. "You... how did you know to do that?"
"I don't know. I just did." But that's not entirely true. I do know. Because I've done it before.
The memory surfaces, vivid and terrible.
A different car. A different body. Nighttime, a shipping container yard near the Naples port.
Me, younger, maybe mid-twenties. Wiping down a vehicle while another man waits nearby—someone older, more experienced, supervising.
Teaching me. "Always wipe the wheel twice.
Door handles, gear shift, rearview mirror. Even the trunk release."
I was learning. Being trained.
"Lupo?" Isabella's voice pulls me back. "You're somewhere else."
"I'm remembering." I meet her eyes. "Isabella, I need to tell you something. About the memories that have been coming back."
"Okay." She's trying to stay calm, but I can see the fear in her eyes.
"It's getting worse. More frequent. More vivid." I run my hand through my hair. "At first it was just flashes. Fragments. But now... now I'm remembering whole scenes. Things I've done."
"What kind of things?"
I want to lie. Want to soften it. But she deserves the truth.
"Killing people. Disposing of bodies. Violence." The words taste like ash. "I remembered why I knew to wipe down the car, Isabella. Because someone taught me. Showed me how to cover up evidence, how to make problems disappear."
She's very pale, but she doesn't pull away. "What else?"
"I remember taking orders. Following instructions. There were men—older men—who would tell me what needed to be done. And I'd do it." I close my eyes, seeing it all play out. "I was good at it. I didn't question. Didn't hesitate."
"You think you were an enforcer. Someone who did the dirty work."
"I know I was." I open my eyes, looking at her. "The things I remember doing, the way I moved through that world. I was a weapon. Someone's weapon. Pointed at problems and told to eliminate them."
She's quiet for a long moment, processing. "Do you remember whose weapon? Who you worked for?"
"No. That's still blank. I remember faces sometimes, but no names. No context." I laugh bitterly. "Just the violence. Always the violence."
"Is there more? Other things you haven't told me?"
I think about the memories that have surfaced in the past few days. The ones I've been keeping to myself because they're too dark, too terrible.
But she deserves to know. Deserves to understand exactly what kind of man she's chosen.
"I remember a basement," I say quietly. "Concrete floor.
A man tied to a chair. Someone had given me an order—make him talk.
Find out what he knew. So I did." I have to stop, the memory so vivid I can smell the blood.
"I beat him. Broke his ribs, his fingers.
Kept going until he told me what I needed to know. "
Isabella's hand tightens on mine, but she doesn't let go.
"I remember standing over bodies," I continue. "Men I'd killed with my own hands. And feeling nothing. No guilt. No remorse. Just checking to make sure the job was done so I could report back."
"Lupo—"
"I remember being in the back of a car, watching someone's house.
Waiting for the target to come home. Knowing what I was going to do.
Knowing I'd done it dozens of times before.
" My voice cracks. "I was a killer, Isabella.
A professional. Someone who hurt people for money.
For orders. For—I don't even know what for. I just did it."
She's silent. I can feel her trying to reconcile the man sitting in front of her with the monster I'm describing.
"I'm not a good person," I say. "Whatever I'm trying to be now, whoever I want to be with you and Elena—that's not who I really am. I'm someone who killed without remorse. Who saw violence as just another job."
"Did you enjoy it?"
The question catches me off guard. "What?"
"The killing. The violence. Did you enjoy it?"
I think about the memories. Try to find pleasure in them. Satisfaction. But all I find is... emptiness.
"No," I say slowly. "I didn't enjoy it. But I didn't hate it either. It was just... what I did. Like breathing. Like it was who I was supposed to be."
"And now?"
"Now the thought of it makes me sick." I look down at my hands—hands that have killed so many people. "But the knowledge is still there. The skills. If someone threatened you or Elena, I wouldn't hesitate. I'd kill them just as easily as I killed Draco. Maybe easier."
"That’s good," she says simply.
I stare at her. "Good?"
"I don't need you to be a saint, Lupo. I need you to be someone who can protect us.
Who won't hesitate when it matters." She squeezes my hand.
"You're right that you're dangerous. That you've done terrible things.
But you're dangerous for us now. For Elena and me.
And I'll take that over being defenseless any day. "
"You're not scared of me?"
"I'm terrified of you." She says it matter-of-factly. "But I'm more terrified of being without you. Of facing the world alone with Elena. Of men like Draco finding us when we have no one to protect us."
"You're choosing me out of fear? Out of necessity."
"No." She leans forward, looking me dead in the eyes.
"I'm choosing you because despite everything you're remembering, despite the violence and the darkness—you came back that day when you saw Draco's car.
You could have kept walking. Could have let him take us.
Could have saved yourself. But you didn't."
"That doesn't make me good."
"Maybe not. But it makes you mine." She touches my face. "The man you were—the enforcer, the killer—he's not the man I know. The man I know makes breakfast for a three-year-old. Works construction to put food on our table. Wipes down cars to protect us from consequences. That's who you are now."
I want to believe her. Want to believe that I can be someone other than the weapon in my memories.
"There's something else," I say. "Something I realized this morning."
"What?"
"The memories are accelerating. More each day. More vivid." I take a breath. "I think soon I'm going to remember everything. My real name. Who I worked for. Where I came from. And when I do..."
"When you do, we'll deal with it." She says it with such certainty. "Together."
"What if the people I worked for are looking for me? What if they're dangerous?"
"Then we'll run."
"What if I remember and want to go back? Want to reclaim whatever life I had?"
She hesitates at that. I see the fear flicker across her face. But when she speaks, her voice is steady.
"Then I'll let you go. Because I won't keep you somewhere you don't want to be." She pauses. "But I don't think you will. I don't think you want that life back."
"How do you know?"
"Because if you did, you'd already be looking for it.
You'd be trying to remember. Trying to find out who you are.
" She touches my face. "Instead, you're here.
Working construction. Playing house with me and Elena.
Building something new. That's not the behavior of a man who wants his old life back. "
She's right. I know she's right.
"The memories are getting clearer," I tell her. "Every day, more comes back. Soon it won't just be fragments. It'll be everything. My name. My past. Everything."
"And you're scared."
"Terrified." The admission costs me. "Because what if whoever I worked for comes looking? What if they find us? What if I was involved in something so bad that there's no escaping it?"
"Then we deal with it. Together." She stands, pulling me up with her. "But right now, we need to focus on the immediate problem. The car. The body. What do we do?"
I shift into the mode that feels increasingly familiar. Strategic. Calculating.
"We do nothing," I say. "We stay calm. Continue our normal routine. The identification will take time. Even if they trace the car to Draco, there's no evidence we were involved. The crash could easily be an accident—drunk driving, mechanical failure, anything."
"But his people—"
"His people will investigate, yes. But they'll start in Rome.
With his known associates. His enemies. They'll assume it was someone from his world.
" I'm thinking it through as I speak, and I realize I know exactly how this kind of investigation works.
"By the time they even think to look here—if they ever do—the trail will be cold. We'll be just another dead end."
"You sound very sure."
"I am." And I am. Because some part of me has seen how these things play out. "We're safe, Isabella. For now."
"For now," she echoes. "But not forever."
"Nothing's forever." I pull her against me, holding her tight. "But we have time. And we'll use it."
She's quiet for a moment, her head on my chest. "Thank you."
"For what?"
"For being honest. About the memories. About who you were." She looks up at me. "I know it's hard. Admitting those things. But I'm glad you did."
"Even if the truth is ugly?"
She touches my face. "I'd rather know what I'm dealing with."
"And now that you do?"
"Now I still choose you." She says it simply. Factually. "Whoever you were, whatever you did—you're trying to be someone different now. And that's what matters to me."
The words settle something in me. Ease the fear just a little.
"I don't deserve you."
She smiles slightly. "But you're stuck with me anyway."
I kiss her, pouring everything I can't say into it. Gratitude. Fear. Hope. When we break apart, she rests her forehead against mine.
"We should check on Elena," she says. "She was scared earlier when I panicked."
"Okay."
We go to Elena's room. She's playing quietly with her rabbit, but when she sees us, she runs over.
"Mama! Daddy! Are you okay?"
Daddy. She says it so naturally now.
I scoop her up. "We're fine. Mama just got a little scared, but everything's okay now."
"Promise?"
I look at Isabella over Elena's head. She nods.
"Promise," I tell my daughter.
It's a lie. I don't know if everything's okay. Don't know what's coming or how we'll survive it.
But for tonight, I can pretend.
For tonight, we can be a family.
And tomorrow, we'll face whatever comes next.