Chapter 18
PIETRO
“And we’re staying here because?” I asked my uncle as he parked the car a few houses down from Emily’s after dropping her off.
“Because he’s there,” he replied with such maddening casualness that it took me a second too long to understand what he meant.
Then I did.
I reached for the door handle, not sure what I was ready to do. All I knew was that I did not want Emily facing the thing she had run from this soon and without warning.
The locks clicked down.
“No.”
Anger hit fast enough that, for the first time in my life, I briefly considered punching my uncle.
He must have read something of that on my face, because one dark brow lifted in open amusement.
“You can try,” he said.
I pinched the bridge of my nose instead.
“You don’t know what it will be like for her.”
“Neither do you.” His voice remained calm, which somehow made it worse. “You have to let her face this. She needs to see what is already obvious to everyone with eyes.”
I looked at him. “And what is that?”
“That she is far more than what he did to her.” His gaze flicked toward the house across the road before returning to me. “That she is stronger than anything she is going to face tonight. And one day, you will thank me for making you sit still long enough to see it.”
I said nothing, but I hated that part of me already knew he was not wrong.
Hoka went on, his tone quieter now, though no softer. “She needs to know her own resilience before she has to look at the uglier parts of you. Or, more accurately, the uglier parts of the life you intend to drag her into.”
I pursed my lips and dragged a hand back through my hair, my eyes fixed on the dark wooden front door across the street.
“How do you even know he’s there?”
“Please, Pietro.” The corner of his mouth lifted. “As if I didn’t have a tracker placed on his car the moment I found out his family connections.”
I looked at him flatly. “You and my father meddle far too much.”
“If you think this is meddling,” he said, “wait until Genovese takes an interest in your personal affairs.”
I grimaced. That was not a comforting thought.
“We won’t apologize for it,” Hoka continued. “It is our role. And one day, whether you like it or not, you will understand that it is also yours.”
I turned back toward the house. “I’m touched by the generational wisdom.”
“We are trying,” he said patiently, “to save you from making some of the mistakes we made.” Then he shrugged. “Personally, I think it is a pointless effort. You are far too stubborn for guidance to take root. The only way you learn is through blood and pain.”
“How encouraging.”
“I prefer honest.”
“You don’t understand,” I said. “I promised to keep her safe.”
“You can’t promise that.”
I looked at him sharply. “What?”
“You can promise to try,” Hoka said. “You can promise vigilance, loyalty, force if necessary. But safety?” He shook his head once. “No. Not unless you intend to lock her away, and before you get any ideas, that doesn’t work either.”
I snorted. “Oh yes? Because you tried?”
“I did.”
I hadn’t expected that answer, and I wanted to ask more, a great deal more, but then the front door of Emily’s house opened.
I saw Adam saunter out.
At first his pace looked easy, almost careless, but by the time he reached the end of the path something in him had changed.
The smile was gone. So was the polished calm.
Even at this distance I could see the irritation riding him, the anger under his skin, and the sight of it hit me with such immediate violence that for one dark second I wanted to walk across the street and kill him where he stood.
Beside me, Hoka chuckled softly.
“Mm,” he said. “Someone’s ego has been bruised.”
I looked at him then and saw it—the same quiet pride he used to wear when I was younger and still got back to my feet after every hit he gave me. He had been testing Emily in his own way. Letting her stand where I wanted to shield her, making me watch her instead of rushing in.
I hated that.
And yet, as I looked back at Adam’s face, twisted now with the kind of thwarted fury only men like him ever mistook for wounded dignity, I also felt something dangerously close to gratitude.
Whatever Emily had said or done in that house, she had done it standing upright.
So I did the only thing I could think of.
I sent her a message.
I’m here if you need me.
I understood that she did not need me to save her in that moment. She needed the possibility of me. The certainty that if she reached, I would answer.
Hoka started the car without another word. Even Olivero stayed silent, which was achievement enough to deserve formal recognition.
By the time we reached the hotel and Hoka handed the keys to the valet, my anger had settled into something harder and more useful.
He turned to me. “Come have dinner with me and your aunt. Try not to overthink everything. And I beg every ancestor before us, if you decide to do something stupid, tell me first.”
I glanced at him. “Why? So you can stop me?”
“No. So I can improve the quality of your bad decisions.” Then he jerked his head toward the entrance. “Come on, oikko,” he said, using the Japanese word for nephew. “Let’s eat.”
I did my best to look marginally more relaxed during dinner, which I suspected fooled absolutely no one.
Violet was warm, perceptive, and visibly tired in the way only pregnancy seemed able to make women look, while Hoka was his usual unreadable self, but neither of them commented on the fact that my phone stayed on the table beside my hand the entire evening.
It lit up twice, both times with things that didn’t matter, and each time I looked down too quickly.
I told myself I was being patient. Reasonable. Respectful of the space Emily had asked for. And perhaps some small part of me even believed it for an hour or two.
But by the time I got back to my room, patience had begun to feel suspiciously similar to torture.
When the sun started to rise and Olivero disappeared for his morning jog, I left before he could ask too many questions.
I was not enough of a fool not to know that my phone could be tracked if anyone bothered to look for me, but I had no desire to sit through the entirely earned mockery that would come with explaining myself first.
Forty minutes later I was parked in a rented car in the hospital lot, the engine off, the Seattle rain ticking softly against the windshield.
I had told Emily I would be at the hotel if she needed me. That was true when I said it.
This was true now.
I sat there in the dark with my eyes on the sliding hospital doors, close enough to come if she called and far enough, I hoped, not to become one more pressure leaning against her on a night that already asked too much.
If Hoka or my father found out, I would hear about it. If Olivero found out, I would hear about it more.
I accepted all of that.
Because however irrational it may have been, sitting uselessly in a hotel room while Emily faced this alone felt worse than sitting in a parking lot like a man one poor decision away from proving every point my uncle had made earlier.
So I waited.
And if that was weakness, obsession, or love in one of its less dignified forms, then so be it.
It made no difference, of course. She texted me updates, short and uneven and clearly written with shaking hands.
They’ve taken her in.
Still waiting.
No news yet.
I read every word too quickly and answered more carefully than I felt, forcing myself to stay measured for her sake when what I wanted was to tear the walls apart stone by stone until the surgery was over and she was safe again.
Then, nearly an hour later, the text I had half expected and fully dreaded finally came.
She’s still in surgery. I wish you were here.
I stared at the words for one suspended second.
Then I replied.
I am here.
Three dots appeared almost instantly, disappeared, then came back.
I know, but I meant close. At the hospital. With me.
I looked up through the rain-streaked windshield toward the glowing entrance and typed back at once.
I’m in the hospital parking lot. Dark green car. Sixth spot from the main doors.
There was no reply.
Five minutes later she was outside.
Even through the rain I could see the frantic way she looked around, shoulders tight, hair already damp, her whole body strained with the kind of contained panic that made my chest hurt just to witness it. I flashed the headlights once.
Her head snapped toward me then she ran.
I was out of the car before she reached it, opening the passenger-side door just as she got there, breathless and wet from the rain and looking at me like she still couldn’t quite believe I was real.
“You’re here,” she breathed.
Not a question. Not really.
Just wonder and exhaustion and relief all tangled together into two small words.
I reached for her immediately, one hand cupping the back of her neck, the other catching her elbow to steady her as she stumbled into me.
“I’m here,” I said quietly. “I told you I would be.”
Whatever fragile composure she’d been holding together broke open at once, and she clutched at my coat with both hands, pressing herself against me as if proximity could keep her upright.
I pulled her closer without thinking, tucking her against me and bending my head over hers while the rain tapped uselessly against the roof of the car above us.
“Come inside,” I murmured. “You’re soaked.”
She nodded, but she didn’t let go, so I moved her with me instead, guiding her gently into the passenger seat before circling to the driver’s side.
By the time I got in, she was already turned toward me, one hand gripping my sleeve as if she had no intention of risking even the small distance between us.
I started the engine and turned the heat up.
For a moment neither of us spoke.
Then she looked at me, eyes too bright and face pale from the strain, and murmured again, “You’re really here.”
“Emily,” I said, brushing wet hair back from her face, “there is very little on this earth that would keep me from you when you ask for me.”
Her mouth trembled.