Lucia #2
I pay the sitter in cash. I don’t count it out in front of her. I don’t need to. The weight of the bills is enough that her fingers hesitate when I place them in her hand, like she’s afraid of taking too much or not taking enough. She’s still young enough to believe money has rules.
Tonight, it has none.
Her eyes flick past me. To Lucia, to the child sagging asleep against her shoulder, to the way the night feels charged and wrong. She nods quickly, swallowing.
“I’m sorry,” she says again, quieter. Almost ashamed.
Lucia shakes her head. “You kept him safe. That’s all that matters.”
Her voice is steady. Too steady. It hits me harder than if she’d been trembling. Because I can see the cost of that steadiness in the tightness of her mouth, the way her spine stays locked even while she holds a sleeping child like she’s terrified the world might take him if her arms loosen.
The sitter leaves quickly. I note the route she takes, the car she gets into, the way she looks over her shoulder once before driving away.
I’ll have someone follow her, anyway. Not because she’s a risk. Because tonight isn’t about trust. It’s about margins.
I open the back door of the car myself. Lucia stops short. It’s a small thing, barely a pause, but her body shifts like she’s already mapping the angle of the seatbelt, the weight of the door, the time it would take to get out if the locks engaged.
Her instincts are sharp. So are mine. She smells like hotel soap and stale air and adrenaline. Not perfume. Not champagne. Survival. The scent sinks into my lungs and does something unnecessary to my pulse.
I don’t want to notice it.
But I do.
“Nico will be safe,” I say before she can speak. “Marco won’t be there. He can’t get to this wing. He can’t get to him.”
She studies my face like she’s searching for cracks. For exaggeration. For bravado. For the lies men like me tell when they want obedience.
She doesn’t find any. Her jaw tightens, then she gets in. The door closes.
The drive is quiet. Not peaceful. Watchful.
Nico falls fully asleep within minutes, his head tucked under Lucia’s chin, his small weight warm and trusting.
Lucia doesn’t relax. Not even when the city lights smear into harmless streaks outside tinted glass.
Her arms tighten around him as if she can hold the world back through muscle alone.
I watch her hands. The knuckles are pale. The grip is controlled. The kind of hold that says if I let go, everything ends.
It does something to me I don’t have a name for. A sharp pressure behind my ribs. Possession isn’t the right word. It’s too crude. Too easy.
This is… recognition.
Like my body remembers her before my mind can finish calculating the damage.
She turns her head slightly, just enough that the passing streetlight catches the line of her throat, the bruised shadow at her collarbone she’s tried to hide with fabric and composure.
The sight pulls heat low in my abdomen. Immediate, unwanted, violent in its clarity. Not arousal. Not only that. Rage. Someone put their hands there. Someone marked what wasn’t theirs.
My fingers flex once against my knee. I force them still. Control is survival.
When the gates rise at the estate, I feel the shift. The perimeter tightens. Cameras realign. Men who don’t look like guards appear exactly where they should.
Lucia notices. Her mouth compresses. Her shoulders lift a fraction, bracing.
I don’t comment.
Inside, the air is cool and still, calibrated to lower heart rates without ever promising comfort. I take them through the private corridor, deliberately avoiding the main house. Marco’s old territory stays dark and sealed. That is deliberate. Everything about tonight is.
I signal once. Gianni steps forward. He’s been with me for twenty years. Quiet. Impeccable. The kind of man who survives by not needing credit. He takes in Lucia, takes in the child, takes in the tension, and reads it like a report.
“This is Gianni,” I say to Lucia. “He’ll stay with Nico while we talk.”
She stiffens immediately. “No,” she says, too fast. Too sharp. “I… no.”
Her voice cracks on the edge of the panic she refuses to admit exists. I watch her shift Nico higher against her chest, tightening her hold like the word no physically anchors her.
The sight pulls something in me taut. This is what devotion looks like when it’s been forged by fear.
“He’s family,” I say instead of correcting her. “He raised my nephews. He’ll sit in the chair and read until your son sleeps deeper, and then he’ll sit there longer.”
Gianni inclines his head slightly. Respectful. Patient. Not offended.
Lucia looks down at Nico. I see the war play out across her face. She wants to fight. She wants to run. She wants to collapse. Exhaustion shows finally, slipping through the cracks in her control. Her lashes flutter once like she’s fighting the urge to blink too long. She swallows. Hard.
“We’ll be right here,” I add. “In the next room.”
Her eyes snap up to mine. Bright. Sharp. Furious with herself for needing anything from me.
“You promise?”
The question is a blade. Because she’s asked men to promise before. Men like Marco. Men who used promises like rope. I don’t tell her to trust me. I don’t offer softness I haven’t earned.
“I promise Marco won’t step foot in this house tonight,” I say. “And there is no way for him to reach your son.”
That lands. Her stare holds mine for a long second, as if she’s trying to find the exact point where I might break. She doesn’t. Her shoulders drop a fraction. A surrender she hates.
She hands Nico over. Watching her do it hits me like a physical blow. Not because I’m afraid. Because she’s giving me something no one gives a man like me willingly.
Trust.
Gianni takes Nico, murmuring something soft in Italian I don’t catch. Nico stirs, frowns, then settles again, his small hand lifting briefly to his ear before falling slack.
The gesture punches straight through me. My hand twitches toward my own ear before I stop it. Lucia watches Nico’s face like she’s memorizing him in case the world steals him away.
I want to tell her it won’t.
I don’t.
Words are cheap. Safety is not.