25. Laney #2
"Get out," Enzo said quietly.
I blinked. My brain couldn't process the words. "What?"
"Get out." He gestured toward the door, sharp and dismissive, already turning away like we didn't matter anymore. "Take your friend. Go."
Nate didn't wait for me to process it. He touched my elbow, gentle but insistent, and started guiding me toward the door.
I went. My legs were shaky under me, my heart hammering so hard I thought I might pass out or throw up or both.
We passed Massimo, close enough that I could have reached out and touched him, and I didn't look at him.
I couldn't. If I looked at him I was going to break, right here, right now, and I couldn't afford that.
At the door, I stopped. Nate kept going, slipping past Enzo's men into the hallway beyond, but I turned back. I don't know why. Maybe I was an idiot.
Massimo was still standing in the center of the room, watching Enzo. Enzo was watching him back. Neither of them had moved. They looked like two people who'd been carved out of the same stone and then spent thirty years trying to break free of each other and never quite managing it.
"Massimo," Enzo said. His voice was rough, scraped raw. "Don't come back."
Massimo nodded once, slow and deliberate. "I won't."
Enzo's men were already moving toward the door, following some signal I hadn't seen Enzo give.
They filed out past me without looking at me, professional and blank-faced, like this was just another job and they'd already forgotten my name.
Enzo came last. He stopped in front of me, close enough that I could see the resemblance to Massimo in the line of his jaw, the shape of his eyes, the way he held his shoulders.
"You should have told him about the child before now," Enzo said quietly. Not accusing. Just stating a fact.
I didn't have an answer for that. He was right, and I hated it, and my throat was too tight to speak anyway. My eyes burned. I blinked hard.
Enzo looked past me, down the hallway where Nate was waiting. "Your friend should leave Rome. Tonight, if he's smart."
"He will," I managed. My voice came out thin and shaky.
Enzo nodded once. Then he walked away, his men falling into step behind him like they'd choreographed it, and the hallway swallowed them up like they'd never been there at all.
I stood in the doorway, my hand braced on the frame to keep me upright, trying to remember how to breathe. The room behind me was silent. I knew Massimo was still in there. I could feel his presence like a weight on my spine, heavy and familiar and unbearable all at once.
I should go to him. I should turn around and walk back into that room and say something, anything, because he'd just walked in here alone and put himself between me and his brother and chosen me in front of everyone.
He'd given up everything for me. He'd come when I needed him even though I'd told him to leave.
But I couldn't forgive him. Not for this.
Not for becoming exactly what he'd promised he wouldn't, not for entering the family's real business the way I'd begged him never to do.
Not for the ten years of leaving me alone while he kept the peace with his mother, not for valuing me for being Sofia's mother instead of for my work, not for never defending me when his family laughed at what I did.
And I couldn't stay here and pretend I wasn't furious and heartbroken and so tired I could barely stand up anymore.
Sofia was in the city, safe with the people I'd left her with. I needed to get to her. I needed to hold my daughter and feel her solid weight in my arms and know she was real and whole and mine.
I stepped out into the hallway. The door stayed open behind me. I didn't close it, didn't look back, just started walking on legs that felt like they might give out any second.
Nate was waiting at the end of the hall, leaning against the wall like his own legs weren't quite steady either. He looked pale, shaken, but whole. Alive. Thank God he was alive. I reached him and he touched my shoulder, brief and steadying.
"You okay?" he asked quietly.
"No," I said. It was the most honest I'd been in weeks. Maybe months.
"Where are we going?"
"I need to get Sofia." My voice sounded strange to my own ears, flat and distant like it belonged to someone else entirely. "Can you get yourself to the airport?"
"Yeah." He squeezed my shoulder once, gentle. "Laney?—"
"Don't," I said. I couldn't handle kindness right now. If he was kind to me, if he said anything sympathetic or understanding, I was going to fall apart right here in this hallway, and I couldn't afford that. Not yet. Not when I still had to get to Sofia. "Just go, Nate. Please."
He nodded slowly. He understood, the way he'd always understood things about me I'd never had to explain out loud. He let go of my shoulder and stepped back, giving me space.
"Take care of yourself," he said.
Then he turned and walked away, his footsteps echoing in the empty hallway. I watched him go until he turned the corner at the end and disappeared from sight. When he was gone, I started walking in the opposite direction, toward the stairs, toward the street, toward wherever Sofia was waiting.
Behind me, the room stayed silent. Massimo didn't call my name. He didn't follow. He didn't come after me.
I told myself that was what I wanted.