14. Aria
ARIA
M y breathing evens out, but my mind refuses to quiet.
The world outside has softened with the orange hush of late afternoon, and still I wait, eyes tracking every shadow, every shift in the narrow alley beyond the garden gate.
I half expect Vitale to come slinking back around the corner, maybe with a cigarette still smoldering between his teeth, pretending this was all some coincidental business errand gone wrong.
But he doesn't come.
Not in the next minute.
Not in the next five.
Eventually, the quiet stops feeling like a threat and starts feeling like a verdict.
The moment I shift my weight from the wall, I feel the sting at my knee. I glance down, only now noticing the rip in my dress, the smear of rust-colored blood dried into the fabric. I bend to brush it away just as I hear a voice behind me.
"Mom, there's blood on you."
Gabriel's voice is soft, foggy with sleep, but it slices through the moment like a bell tolling somewhere too close.
He stands at the foot of the narrow hallway in his wrinkled dinosaur pajamas, a thumb tucked absently into the waistband, eyes blinking against the overhead light like he's trying to decide if this is still part of his dream.
I straighten quickly, swallow the panic, and force my smile into place.
"It's nothing, my love," I say, lowering to one knee. "Just a scrape. I slipped while we were running."
His little face creases with worry. "Why were we running?"
I pause. The question hits harder than I expected it to.
There are at least a hundred answers, each one more complicated than the next, but none of them feel right for a child who still believes the world should be kind.
"I'll explain everything," I murmur, gathering him into my arms. "Just let me get you cleaned up first, all right?"
He nods, but I can tell the unease hasn't left him. His arms cling tighter around my neck than usual.
When I carry him into the kitchen, his small body leans against me with that full, unquestioning trust only children know how to give.
It wrecks me.
Because I know I am the reason he was frightened today.
I am the one dragging him away from a past that refuses to die.
The bandage box is tucked into the cabinet beneath the sink.
I dab the scrape clean, ignoring the way the alcohol bites into the torn skin, and plaster it over with a thin strip of gauze.
It's nothing. Superficial.
A wound that will disappear in a day or two.
But Gabriel watches every movement, his questions pooling silently in his eyes until they finally spill over.
"Did I do something wrong?" he asks quietly. "Is that why you lost me?"
My breath hitches.
"No," I say, pulling him close again. "You did everything right. I just got scared, that's all. It had nothing to do with you."
"Then why were you crying?"
Because I failed you. Because I let my past touch you. Because I almost lost the only reason I'm still breathing.
Instead, I say, "Sometimes grownups cry when they've been strong for too long. But I promise, I'm all right now."
He stares at me like he doesn't quite believe it. His little brow furrows again, not with suspicion, but with the aching weight of a boy too young to carry so much worry. I cup his cheek and kiss his forehead.
"I was thinking," I say, forcing cheer into my voice, "we could have an early night tonight. Maybe even bake something."
Gabriel perks up. "Brownies?"
I nod. "Your favorite."
He smiles then. It's small, but it's real.
I start cracking eggs into a chipped ceramic bowl while he climbs onto the kitchen stool and begins unwrapping the bar of chocolate I keep hidden at the back of the pantry.
The oven hums to life. The smell of sugar and vanilla slowly fills the air, sweetening the tension into something warm and bearable.
For a while, we move through the kitchen like we used to before all of this.
I hand him the spoon to stir while I measure out the flour, and he sneaks a lick of batter when he thinks I'm not looking.
I do not stop him. I do not mention the man in the alley or the flight through the market.
I do not remind him that we're not safe.
For these few moments, I let the illusion hold.
The brownies bake in silence. Gabriel watches an old cartoon on the couch, curled up with a blanket and his favorite stuffed bear.
I stay in the kitchen, watching the clock.
Every minute that passes without a knock on the door feels like a gift I don't deserve. I wonder if it will last until morning.
After dinner—just two scrambled eggs and toast, something simple to keep the edges of our nerves from fraying—I help him wash up and tuck him into bed. He's out within minutes. The brownies are still cooling on the counter, untouched.
I sit on the edge of the couch and let the quiet settle around me.
My body aches from the sprint through the marketplace, my knee throbs beneath the bandage, but none of it compares to the storm in my chest.
It should be enough that he's safe.
That we made it through the day without being found. But I can't shake the image of that man's face. Vitale. Salvatore muscle, always silent, always watching.
What if he saw more than I thought he did? What if someone else already knows?
I stare at the front door, half-expecting it to swing open. Nothing moves. The night air is still, but my breath is shallow, caught in a rhythm that belongs to the hunted.
I reach for the photograph hidden in the drawer beneath the television.
The edges are worn, the image blurred slightly with age, but the face is unmistakable.
Aria Lombardi, my former self, dead and buried, seated beside a man with a smile like thunderclouds and promises he never intended to keep. I trace his jaw with my fingertip.
"Enzo," I whisper into the stillness.
I hate that his name still fits in my mouth like a secret. I hate that part of me aches for him, even now, when I know better.
Even now, when it is his world that threatens to destroy mine. But the pain does not care about logic. It never has.
I close the drawer again and return to the kitchen. I slice the brownies into perfect squares, wrap a few in wax paper, and place them in Gabriel's school satchel for tomorrow, even though I know he may not return to that school.
We may not return to anything at all.
Not this home.
Not this town.
Not this life I have carved from the ashes of my old one.
I lean against the counter and close my eyes, hands braced on either side of the sink.
My breath hitches once, then again.
Then I let it come, the sob that has been clawing at my throat all day. It breaks free with a violence I don't have the strength to stop. I sink to the floor, curl into myself, and weep like I haven't allowed myself to in five years.
With a little sigh, I wipe away my tears and begin focusing on the dishes that have piled up on the counter.
The water runs hot between my fingers, but my skin has gone cold.
I stare through the window above the sink, where a single strand of ivy coils against the glass like it is trying to reach something. I know that feeling.
I know what it is to ache like that, to want what you should not, what the world insists you have no right to want. What your heart cannot forget, even when it tries.
Enzo.
His name is the one thing I never say aloud, not even when I am alone.
But tonight, the silence in the house carries his shadow in it, and I cannot keep pretending I don't still feel him in the places I thought I had long since scrubbed clean.
I dry my hands slowly and walk into the small living room.
Gabriel is already asleep, curled on the couch beneath the faded plaid blanket I brought with me from Palermo, his arms wrapped around the same stuffed dog he has refused to let go of since he was four.
His chest rises and falls in that soft, rhythmic way only children manage. He trusts the world to hold him. He still believes I can protect him from anything.
I wish I still could.
I sink to the floor beside him, my arms curled around my knees, and for a long time, I do not move.
The apartment is still.
A coloring book lies open on the coffee table, a cup of milk going warm beside it. The scent of chocolate and eggs from the brownies still lingers in the air, sweetening the quiet, masking the undercurrent of panic that simmers low in my spine.
I tilt my head back against the couch cushions and close my eyes.
I can see Enzo as clearly as if he were standing in front of me. That impossible stillness he carries like armor. The way his eyes narrow just before he laughs. How his voice roughens when he says my name, as if the word itself catches in his throat and refuses to come out clean.
I remember the way his hand fit at the back of my neck, fingers curling like he wanted to keep me close forever and was always bracing for the moment he would have to let go.
I should not have left without telling him.
But I had to.
There was no other way to protect Gabriel, to protect the one good thing left in me.
And I told myself, over and over again, that Enzo would understand one day.
That if he ever truly loved me, he would know.
But five years is a long time.
And maybe he gave up on me long before I ever ran.
A sound escapes me, soft and broken, not quite a sob but close enough.
I press my hands to my face.
My shoulders tremble as I try to pull myself back together, but the edges are coming loose again.
It is not just the danger.
It is not just the man I saw in the market, or the possibility that Luca might already know.
It is everything.
The exhaustion, the hiding, the years of pretending to be someone who did not come from blood and secrets and betrayal.
I thought I could outdance my own shadow. But it has caught up with me, and it is wearing my son's face.
I do not know how long I sit like that, watching the dark settle in. Eventually, I gather myself enough to stand, to carry Gabriel to his bed and tuck him in without waking him.
He sighs once in his sleep and turns his face into the pillow, the way he used to do when he was a baby.
I kiss the crown of his head, brush the curls from his forehead, and turn off the light.
The next morning, I know what I have to do.
I pack his school bag with careful hands, tucking in the little note I always write him, the one he reads at lunch like a secret.
He hugs me tight before the door, but he is already distracted, already thinking of his friends and the games they will play at recess.
I watch him walk to the bus stop, his backpack bouncing behind him, his steps full of a confidence I envy.
Then I close the door, and I start to make the list.
What to pack. What to sell. What to leave behind.
We have three days at most before someone makes the connection.
If I were Enzo, I would have made it already.
But Enzo is not looking for me.
I need to remember that.
When Gabriel comes home that afternoon, he is all sunburns and dusty clothing and wide eyes.
He is halfway through telling me about a new card game when I crouch beside him and take both his hands.
"We have to go," I say, my voice gentle, too gentle, because I do not want to scare him.
But I see the fear anyway, surfacing like something cold breaking through the water.
"Go where?" he asks. "Why?"
I hesitate. He is too smart. He knows when I lie.
"Somewhere safer," I say. "Somewhere no one can find us."
His mouth trembles. "But I like it here."
"I know." My heart begins to splinter as I look at his big doe-eyes, the way the corner of his mouth turns as he tries to make sense of what I've just said.
"I don't want to leave my school." His voice falls until it is just a whisper. It is all I can do not to break into tears in front of him.
Instead, I clench my palms into tight little fists. "I know that, too."
"Can we stay for the weekend?" His voice is small now, desperate. "I promised Luca and Leo we'd build a fort on Saturday."
Saying yes is risky, but saying no would mean tearing his little world apart with no band-aids, and God, I cannot do that. I nod once. "Just the weekend. Then we go."
He hugs me, hard, and then disappears into the courtyard to play.
I watch him from the window, arms wrapped around myself.
I know this is the last time he will run through those olive trees, chase the cat that belongs to the neighbor upstairs, kick pebbles down the sunlit path.
In his own ways, he is saying goodbye.
That night, he goes to a sleepover with a friend from his school, and I honor the night with a walk through the city.
I do not carry a bag, and I do not wear shoes that will slow me down if I have to run.
I just walk.
I go past the cathedral, where old women light candles for sons lost to crime and war.
Past the bakery where the woman with the crooked teeth sells bread that tastes like honey and ash.
Past the train station where I arrived with nothing but a name and a handful of lies.
I walk until my feet ache, until the sky turns the color of bruised silk and the city lights glow like a thousand little stars we pinned into place to trick ourselves into thinking the night cannot swallow us.
I walk until I find myself at the fountain near the old opera house, where the water never quite runs clean and the statues have long since eroded into ghostly silhouettes.
I sit on the edge of the stone basin and watch the ripples catch the light, and I let myself remember everything.
The way Enzo looked at me the first time he saw me dance in the rain…it was possibly the only time I'd seen him smile, really smile.
The way his voice dropped to a whisper when he told me I was his peace in a world made for war.
The way he held me that last night, and the way he told me he would always choose Luca Salvatore over me and my son.