Lucia #3
As we do our best to catch our breath, I cling to him, wondering when I’ll be forced to let him go. We stare at each other. Like we’re both trying to understand what we’ve done.
“We shouldn’t have,” I whisper, voice wrecked, breath still uneven.
“I know,” he says immediately.
“But I’m not sorry,” I admit, because the lie won’t fit in my mouth. Not now. Not with my skin still lit up like a bruise.
His gaze drops to my mouth again. Then back up.
“Neither am I,” he says, and something in his voice sounds like surrender.
Then his phone rings. Sharp. Loud. Violent in the quiet.
Turo’s entire body changes in one second. Control slamming back into place like armor. He reaches for the phone without looking away from me.
“Yes,” he says. A pause. His jaw tightens. “Where?” Another pause. “Again?”
Cold settles in my stomach, creeping up slow and certain. Turo’s gaze flicks briefly to the door, to the hallway beyond, to the wing where Nico sleeps.
He makes a decision in the space of a breath. “Increase perimeter teams,” he orders. “I want eyes on that vehicle. Do not engage unless it breaches. Report every movement.”
As he speaks, his hands are already moving.
Efficient. Automatic. Like he’s done this a thousand times and still hates every second of it.
He snatches up the discarded tie and loops it around his neck one-handed, fingers working the knot with brutal calm while the voice on the other end keeps talking.
He doesn’t look down. He doesn’t need to.
The tie slides into place like muscle memory.
He drags his shirt straight, rebuttons the few buttons that matter, the fabric still wrinkled where my hands clawed it.
His cuff clicks shut. His watch goes back into position.
Everything being put back together. Everything being hidden.
The man at the desk vanishing behind the man who owns the house.
He ends the call with a sharp tap of his thumb and steps back like he has to physically pull himself away from me. The distance hurts more than it should.
He’s already moving toward the door, already halfway gone.
And then he stops.
Turns back. Just once.
He crosses the space in two strides, hands framing my face like he can’t help himself, like he needs the proof that I’m still here and not a mistake he imagined in the dark.
“We’ll talk,” he snaps. Then, harder, like he’s issuing an order to the universe. “I promise.”
His mouth crashes to mine one last time. Quick. Brutal. Sealing something we can’t unseal.
Then he’s gone. The door opens. Closes. His footsteps vanish into the corridor like he never stopped being the don.
I sit there on his desk, clothes disheveled, heart pounding, skin buzzing, trying to breathe through the fact that my life just changed again.
Not because of Marco. Not because of court.
Not even because of the man circling the gates.
Because of this. Because I let myself reach for something real.
Because Turo Mancini looked at me like I was more than survival for the first time in my life.
And I answered him.
I slide off the desk carefully, like my legs forgot they’re supposed to work.
The floor is cold under my feet. There are papers everywhere.
One page is half crumpled under the leg of the chair.
Another is hanging off the edge of the desk like it tried to escape.
I smooth my dress down with shaking hands.
Find my underwear where it landed, then my bra, the strap twisted like it’s as startled as I am.
I pull it on with jerky, clumsy movements, fumbling with the clasp behind my back because my fingers won’t cooperate.
Button.
Button.
Button.
I miss one and go back. My throat feels raw.
My mouth tastes like him and panic. I pick up my shoes and slip them on without bothering to sit.
My hair is a mess. My lipstick, if it ever existed tonight, is gone.
I catch a glimpse of myself in the dark window of the study and barely recognize the woman staring back.
She looks flushed.
Marked.
Alive in a way that feels like sin.
I drag a hand over my face and force air into my lungs until my chest stops rising so fast.
Gather yourself.
Be normal.
Be a mother again.
My gaze catches on Nico’s toy car sitting near the edge of the wood. The little boss car. The one he left behind. And it hits me, sudden and sharp:
We didn’t just cross a line.
We burned it down.
And there’s no going back.
Not now. Not with our son sleeping down the hall. Not with danger circling outside. Not with my body still remembering his hands like they were home.
I step closer and touch the toy car with one finger, like it might bite. Like it might accuse me. I don’t move it. I can’t. I press my palm to the desk to steady myself.
Then I whisper into the empty room, to the car, to the walls, to the version of me that still thinks safety can be earned by staying small:
“What have I done?”
And the terrifying part is, I already know the answer.
Something I can’t undo.
Something I don’t regret.