Lucia
The worst part about waiting is that your body doesn’t know it’s supposed to stay quiet.
It keeps moving, anyway. Small, useless movements that make you feel like you’re doing something when you’re not.
It tightens your shoulders. It clenches your stomach.
It makes your hands hover like they’re searching for a task to latch onto so your brain doesn’t have to keep replaying the same three images on loop:
Turo’s mouth against Nico’s hair.
Nico’s arms around his neck.
The way Turo’s eyes didn’t soften when he promised. They sharpened. Like the promise was a blade he’d just put in his own ribs.
I always come back.
I stood in the doorway and watched him leave like a woman watching a storm walk into the sea.
And now the house is still. Still, but not peaceful. Still, the way a room is still after someone slams a door and you’re waiting to see if it opens again.
Nico is on the floor in the family wing with his cars lined in perfect rows, a guard crouched beside him with patient attention like this is the most important assignment of his life. Which, in a way, it is.
“Blue one goes first,” Nico instructs gravely.
“Yes, piccolo,” the guard says, dead serious. “Blue goes first.”
Nico nods once, satisfied, and nudges the blue car forward exactly one inch. He glances at me like he needs a witness.
I give him one. A smile I make real on purpose. My chest aches with it. Because this… this quiet, domestic lie… should make me feel safe. Instead, it makes me feel like the universe is setting me up to take it away.
I sit on the couch with my legs folded beneath me, posture contained, hands clasped loosely in my lap like I’m practicing calm. I’ve gotten good at that. I can hold my face still through anything. I can make my voice warm while my blood turns to ice.
I’m good at surviving.
But partners don’t just survive. Partners see. Partners anticipate. Partners don’t let the man they love walk into a trap because it’s his job to be brave.
And I can feel it. This restless, crawling unease, like my body is trying to tell me something my mind hasn’t caught up to yet.
Nico’s head tilts as he pushes the red car into the line. His fingers go to his ear, quick and automatic. He’s been doing it all morning. Not constant. Not dramatic. Just enough that I notice every time, like a bell going off in my chest.
“You okay, baby?” I ask lightly.
He doesn’t look up. “Yes.”
It’s the same answer I used to give Marco. The one that meant no, but it’s safer if you believe me.
I swallow and make my voice gentler. “Do you want a snack?” I ask. “Something crunchy?”
Nico considers, still touching his ear like he’s checking whether the world is stable. Then he nods.
“Crackers,” he says. “Not broken.”
“Not broken,” I repeat, because he likes what he likes and control comes in small shapes for kids who’ve had too much chaos.
I stand and move toward the sideboard where snacks are kept in a perfectly arranged drawer. Luxury is so efficient when it wants to be. Everything has a place. Everything is labeled. Everything looks like a life that never had to improvise.
I’m reaching for the box when one of the guards—Matteo’s younger cousin, I think—steps into the doorway. He pauses like he’s deciding whether to speak. The hesitation pricks at my skin.
“What is it?” I ask, keeping my tone neutral.
“A message came through,” he says. “For the don.”
My stomach drops. For the don usually means something that moves in shadows. Something that doesn’t belong in a house where a three-year-old is deciding which car goes first.
“He’s not here,” I say carefully.
“I know,” the guard replies. “But it’s about the sit-down.”
The word sit-down makes my mouth go dry. It sounds too casual for what it is.
It sounds like two men having coffee.
It isn’t.
“Where?”
He glances down the hall, then back at me. Like he’s checking if I have permission to know. I feel something sharp rise behind my ribs. I’m tired of being treated like a guest in the middle of my own life.
“I’m his partner,” I say. “Show me.”
His brows twitch in a flicker of surprise. Then he nods once, as if he’s been waiting for someone to claim that word out loud.
“Yes, signora,” he says, and turns.
I follow him down the corridor, leaving Nico with the guard in the room. Nico doesn’t look up. He trusts the men here now. Or he trusts me to choose who’s safe.
That trust feels like a weight. And a weapon.
The guard leads me to a smaller office tucked behind the security center. Not the main command room, but adjacent. Like a place designed for logistics without the noise of war.
A table. A laptop open. Printed pages with diagrams. A folder labeled in neat block letters.
ROSSI SIT-DOWN — FUNERAL HOME — 16:30
I stare at it. Funeral home. Of course. Of course they chose death as their neutral ground.
“Can you step out?” I ask the guard.
He hesitates. I look at him. He steps out. The door closes softly behind him. I exhale once, slow, and pick up the papers. The first sheet is a layout. Floor plan. Entrances marked. Exits highlighted. Seating arrangement sketched with little squares and arrows.
My event planner brain clicks on like a switch.
Not the part of me that worries. The part of me that notices.
I don’t see “a meeting.” I see movement.
I see flow. I see what happens when bodies enter a space and where they naturally funnel.
I see the places people think they’re safe because there are doors, without realizing doors are just holes someone can block.
The funeral home has two main exits from the meeting room. Two. Both narrow. Both leading into a corridor that tightens like a throat before it opens into the lobby. Choke points.
My pulse sharpens. I flip the page. Staffing list. It’s labeled Support Personnel. Catering. Flowers. Security.
Wait… catering? For a sit-down? I blink once. No one brings catering to a sit-down unless they’re putting on a show.
Or hiding something in trays.
The list of flowers is absurd. Extra arrangements. Tall ones. Thick greenery. Large vases placed near the corners of the room. Decorative. Also perfect for concealing weapons, cameras, men.
My fingers go cold. I move to the timeline.
16:30 — Arrival (Rossi)
16:35 — Arrival (Mancini)
16:40 — Seating / Opening remarks
16:55 — “Toast” / refreshments served
17:10 — Discussion begins
The time is late afternoon. Low sun. Glare through windows. Visibility problems if anyone’s positioned outside. Shadows long enough to hide movement.
I stare at the paper, and my brain does something it’s done a hundred times in ballrooms and vineyards and hotel conference rooms. It runs the event like a film.
Guests arrive. They enter. They funnel. They pause where the space makes them pause.
They follow the path the setup encourages them to follow.
And if that path leads through a narrow corridor with two exits that can be blocked…
My throat tightens. I can almost see it. Not with imagination. With pattern recognition. A “toast” moment. People stand. Glasses lift. Attention shifts. That’s when you move pieces. That’s when you kill someone who’s watching faces instead of hands.
This isn’t a sit-down.
This is a hit with a dress code.
I drop the papers on the table like they’re burning. My hands shake. Not from fear. From certainty.
I reach for my phone. Not the burner this time. The secure one they gave me after the threat text. The one linked to the estate system. The one that can reach Turo directly.
My thumb hovers for half a second. I don’t wait for permission. I hit call. It rings once. Twice.
On the third ring, he answers.
“Lucia.”
His voice is calm. Too calm. It makes my blood chill because calm in his world usually means violence is already loaded and waiting.
“Don’t go in,” I say immediately.
Silence. Not shocked. Not confused. Focused.
“What are you seeing?” He trusts the part of me that reads danger even when I’m shaking.
I swallow hard. “The layout,” I say quickly. “It funnels. Two exits from the room, both narrow, both leading into a choke corridor. They can block you in. They can turn it into a kill box.”
His breath changes. Subtle. A quick inhale.
I push on. “There’s catering listed,” I continue. “For a sit down. That’s not normal. It’s an excuse to move people through the room with trays. Conceal weapons. Distract.”
Silence again. I can hear the faintest shift of sound on his end, like he’s moving, turning, gesturing. I keep going, because stopping feels like dying.
“Flowers,” I say, voice tightening. “Too many. Tall arrangements. Corners. Visual cover. Places to hide guns or men. And the timing, late afternoon. Low sun. Glare. Shadows. They picked it on purpose.”
His voice comes again, lower now. “Go on.” The word is both an invitation and a command.
I close my eyes for a second and let my brain run the film again. “They planned a ‘toast’ at 16:55,” I say. “Refreshments served. That’s when attention shifts. That’s when they move.” My hand clamps around the phone. “This isn’t peace,” I whisper. “This is an ambush disguised as an event.”
There’s a pause. Then I hear him speak. Not to me, but to someone near him.
“Matteo,” he says, clipped. “Get me the staffing list. Now.”
Another voice answers, muffled, “Yes, Don.”
Then Turo’s voice returns to my ear, controlled and deadly. “Hold on.”
I stand there in the quiet office, heart hammering so hard it hurts. I can hear my own blood. I can hear my breath. On his end, there’s movement. Low voices. Orders. Then his voice snaps, loud enough I catch it through the phone like a knife.
“Change of plan,” he says. “Assume hostile.”
My knees go weak with relief and terror at once. He’s already doing it. He’s already trusting me.
“Plant our people as staff,” he continues. “Both exits. Defensive positions. Treat this as a hit, not a meeting.”
I grip the phone tighter. He comes back to me.
“If you’re wrong,” he says, “we look paranoid.”
My laugh is sharp and ugly. “If I’m right,” I whisper, “you’re alive.”
A beat. “Good enough for me,” he says.
My chest cracks open. Because this is what partnership looks like in his world: a man with a gun, trusting a woman with a floor plan.
And then he says, quieter, and it hits harder than all the tactical talk: “Stay with Nico.”
My throat tightens. “I am,” I say.
“I’ll call,” he says. “When we’re in position.”
“Okay,” I whisper, even though that’s a lie. There’s nothing okay about any of this.
The line goes dead. I stare at my phone. Then I force myself to breathe.
In.
Out.
I gather the papers again, smoother this time, because panic doesn’t help. I slide them back into the folder, press it flat, and open the door.
The guard straightens outside like he’s been listening for my pulse. “Is it…” he starts.
“It’s a trap,” I say, voice steady. “He knows. He’s changing the plan.”
The guard’s eyes sharpen. He nods once like he’s relieved someone named the monster.
“You really think so?” he asks, because men like certainty, too.
I meet his gaze. “I plan events,” I say. “This is an event. And it’s designed to kill him.”
I don’t wait for him to reply. I walk back toward the family wing, my body moving on instinct.
Because the next part of this is waiting.
And waiting is the part that breaks you.