11. Cielo
— ? —
Cielo
The corridor is long and gray and leads toward a loading area, which is probably why the man following me thinks it’s a good idea. Fewer witnesses. Easier to make someone disappear.
He doesn’t know I grew up in this country. He doesn’t know my husband spent two years teaching me to defend myself before I ever set foot on that Sicilian cliff. He doesn’t know that I’ve been running for five years and I’m very, very tired of being afraid.
“Signora.” His voice echoes off the concrete walls. “We just want to talk.”
I don’t answer. I keep walking, measuring distances, cataloging exits. There’s a door ahead, heavy-looking, probably locked. A stack of luggage carts to my left. The man behind me is big but moves like he expects compliance, not resistance.
“Signora, please. You’re making this harder than it needs to be.”
I stop. Turn. Let him see my face, the face of a woman who’s walked through fire and come out the other side.
“Who sent you?”
He blinks, clearly not expecting the question. “That’s not-”
“Who sent you?”
“Listen, lady, I don’t want any trouble. Just come with me and-”
I don’t let him finish. The luggage cart is right there, and I shove it into his path hard enough to send him stumbling, and then I’m running again, through the door that turns out to be unlocked after all, into a maze of service hallways that I navigate on pure instinct and adrenaline.
Behind me, I hear him cursing, recovering, calling for backup. More than one of them. I was right.
Gio. Think about Gio.
My phone buzzes in my pocket - Delphine’s reply: On my way. ETA 3 minutes. Will get him.
Three minutes. I just need to stay free for three minutes.
I round a corner and nearly collide with another man, this one younger and faster, and we end up in a tangle of limbs and grunting effort.
He grabs for my arm; I drive my elbow into his throat.
He staggers; I kick him in the knee and he goes down.
Giovanni would be proud, I think, and the thought is so absurd under the circumstances that I almost laugh.
But there are more of them. I can hear them converging, can feel the net tightening, and I’m running out of hallway and running out of time.
Two minutes. Just two more minutes.
I burst through another door and find myself in some kind of maintenance area - machines humming, pipes running along the ceiling, the smell of oil and industrial cleaner. Dead end. No exit except the door I came through.
I turn to face it, fists raised, ready to fight however many of them come through.
The door slams open.
But it’s not the men who were chasing me. It’s something else - something faster, more focused, more deadly. A single figure moving through the chaos like a blade through water, dropping attackers with an efficiency that would be beautiful if it weren’t terrifying.
In seconds, it’s over. Bodies on the ground, groaning or unconscious. And the figure who took them all down is standing in the doorway, breathing hard, staring at me like he’s seen a ghost.
Because he has.
I know him. Despite five years, despite the gray at his temples that wasn’t there before, despite the new lines carved around his eyes - I know him the way I know my own heartbeat, the way I know the curve of my son’s cheek, the way I know every scar and shadow of the life I ran from.
Giovanni.
He’s holding something in his left hand, I realize - a small object he keeps touching, rubbing between his fingers like a talisman. It catches the light, and I recognize it with a shock that nearly takes me to my knees.
The clasp from the star necklace. The one that broke when I fled the villa.
He still has it.
After five years, he still has it.
“Cielo.” My name in his mouth, the name I buried, the name I haven’t used since I drove away from Sicily with his child inside me. “It’s you. It’s really you.”
And the ground opens under both of us.
* * *
“Don’t.” The word comes out harsher than I intended, but I can’t soften it. “Don’t come any closer.”
He stops, but barely. Every line of his body is straining toward me, five years of searching visible in the desperate hunger of his gaze. He looks older. Harder. Like someone has been carving away at him with a blunt knife.
“Cielo, what - how - I’ve been looking for you for-”
“I know.” My phone buzzes again, and I glance at it without letting him out of my sight. Delphine: Got him. On our way to the house. He’s safe.
The relief is so intense I nearly collapse. Gio is safe. Delphine has him. Whatever happens next, whatever Giovanni does, my son is safe.
“You know?” Giovanni’s voice is rough, almost broken. “You know I’ve been searching for five years, and you - where have you been? Why did you run? Why didn’t you-”
“You need to let me go.”
“Like hell I do.” He takes a step closer, and I take one back, and we’re circling each other in this grimy maintenance room like fighters in a ring.
“You disappeared. You vanished without a trace, and I’ve spent every day since trying to find you, and now you’re standing in front of me and you want me to just let you walk away? ”
“I want you to go back to your wife and leave me alone.”
The words hit him like a physical blow. He actually recoils, confusion and hurt warring on his face.
“My wife? Cielo, you’re my wife.”
“Not anymore.” I shake my head, and the chain around my neck shifts against my skin - the chain that holds his mother’s ring, the wedding band I couldn’t bear to throw away no matter how many times I tried. “You remarried. The search ended. The feud is over. I came back because I thought-”
“Who told you that?” His voice is dangerously quiet now. “Who told you I remarried?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“It matters very much, because it’s a lie.” He steps closer again, and this time I don’t retreat. “I never remarried. I never stopped searching. I never gave up, not for one day, not for one hour. Whoever told you otherwise was either wrong or lying, and when I find out who-”
“You’re saying you spent five years looking for me.
” I don’t believe him. I can’t believe him.
If I believe him, then everything I built my life around for the past half-decade crumbles to dust. “Five years, Giovanni. With all your resources, all your connections, all your power. And you couldn’t find one woman? ”
“Someone was covering your tracks.” His jaw is tight, his hands clenched at his sides. “Every lead went cold. Every contact came up empty. Someone was actively keeping me from finding you, and I don’t know who, but I will find out, Cielo. I swear to God I will find out.”
“Convenient.”
“It’s the truth.”
We stare at each other across the gap that five years have built between us. He looks wrecked - exhausted and furious and heartbroken all at once. I probably look the same. We’re two people who used to be everything to each other, and now we’re strangers wearing familiar faces.
“I need to go,” I say finally. “Someone is waiting for me.”
“I’m not letting you out of my sight.”
“Giovanni-”
“No.” The word is final, absolute. “I just found you after five years of hell. I’m not letting you disappear again.”
“You don’t get to make that decision.”
“Watch me.”