37. Tony
TONY
Dad bought the villa before I was born.
I remembered the first time he took me. I was four, maybe five.
Cypress trees lining the road like sentinels, the hills folding into each other the way fabric does when you lay it out on a table.
Dad had one hand on the wheel and the other pointing at everything.
The vineyard. The olive grove. The stone wall that had been there since the fifteenth century.
He talked the entire ride. He never talked that much.
I hadn't been back in years.
The staff had opened the house. Shutters flung wide.
Terra-cotta pots of lavender on the terrace.
The smell hit me the second we walked through the door.
Sun-warmed stone and dried herbs and something underneath it all that was just old.
Old in the way that meant safe. The walls were three feet thick.
The floors were cool tile. The furniture was worn and comfortable and nothing matched and everything belonged.
Avery lost her mind.
She dropped her backpack in the front hall and ran.
Through the kitchen, out the back door, into the olive grove.
Her shriek carried across the hillside like a siren.
I watched her from the terrace. She was grabbing at low branches, shaking them, trying to make olives fall.
Most of the olives weren't ripe. She didn't care.
"Tony."
I turned. Mia stood in the doorway to the terrace. She had one hand on the stone frame and the other pressed against her sternum. Her reading glasses were pushed up into her hair. Her eyes were wet.
"It's..." She shook her head. Tried again. "I've never been to Italy."
The hills behind her stretched in every direction.
Green and gold and terra cotta. The colors were muted for me.
The reds that should have blazed from the tile roofs looked like rust. The greens had a grayish cast, like looking through a dirty window.
But I could see the light. The Tuscan light was different from Colorado.
Warmer. Softer. It landed on Mia's face and turned her skin to honey.
"Come here," I said.
She crossed the terrace. I slid my arm around her shoulders and pulled her against my side. She fit the way she always did. Top of her head against my chest.
"Dad used to stand right here," I said. "He'd drink espresso and stare at the hills for an hour before he'd say a word."
"Sounds like someone I know."
I pulled her closer. She smelled like airplane shampoo and something sweet. "I don't drink espresso."
She laughed. The sound mixed with Avery's shrieking in the grove. For a second I couldn't tell which noise was more beautiful.
The days were slow.
Avery chased lizards across the garden walls.
She caught one on the second day and named it Princess Sparkle and then cried when it escaped through the gate.
She picked olives from the lowest branches and lined them up on the terrace railing like soldiers.
"They're in a meeting, Daddy. Don't interrupt. "
Mia read on the terrace in the afternoons.
Tucked into a wicker chair with her legs folded under her, glasses on, a cup of coffee balanced on the armrest. She was working through a stack of paperbacks she'd found on the villa bookshelves.
Old Italian mysteries. She couldn't read the Italian but she liked the covers.
I sketched.
Not painting. I didn't trust my hands with paint right now, not with the colors shifting beneath me like sand. But charcoal was honest. Black on white. No interpretation needed. I sat on the low stone wall at the edge of the olive grove and drew them.
Mia reading. Her chin tilted down. The line of her jaw.
Avery crouching over a row of olives, conducting a meeting with total authority.
The two of them on the terrace steps, Mia braiding Avery's hair while Avery wiggled and complained and held still for exactly zero seconds.
I filled a sketchbook in three days.
On the fourth afternoon we walked to the village.
The road wound down through the olive grove and along a stone wall covered in wild jasmine. Avery held one of my hands and one of Mia's. She swung between us on every third step, feet leaving the ground, dark curls bouncing.
"Again," she said.
We swung her again.
"Again."
The village was small. A church with a bell tower. A bakery. A butcher. A market stall with tomatoes and basil and peaches so ripe they bruised if you looked at them wrong.
Avery broke free the second she saw the stall. She ran to the vendor, a woman in a green apron with silver hair and brown hands, and tugged on the hem of the apron.
"My Mimi wants the big tomatoes," Avery said.
The vendor looked down at her. Looked at Mia. Smiled the way Italian women smile at children who belong to someone.
"Your Mimi has good taste," she said.
My Mimi.
Said to a stranger. In a country where nobody knew us. Casual and permanent and sure in the way only a five-year-old can be. Not a question. Not a trial run. A fact. Mia was her Mimi. The same way the sky was blue. The same way Daddy was tall.
Mia crouched to help Avery pick the biggest tomatoes. When she stood and turned to show me, I was right there. Close. Closer than she expected.
She tilted her head back to look at me. The sun was behind her and the light caught the loose strands of hair at her temples and turned them copper.
I put my hand on the back of her neck. My fingers spanned from her ear to the curve of her shoulder. She was so small under my palm. Warm skin and the faint pulse of her heartbeat under my thumb.
She smiled up at me. "We got the big ones."
I looked at her face in that Tuscan light and thought about leveling mountains. About tearing apart anything that stood between this woman and the rest of her life. She fit under my hand like she was made to be held there.
"Good," I said.
Mia fell asleep before ten.
The villa bedroom had white walls and white sheets and an open window that looked out over the grove. She was curled on her side, one arm under her pillow, hair fanned across the linen. I pulled the sheet to her shoulder. She didn't stir.
My phone vibrated on the nightstand. Katherine.
I took it to the hallway and closed the bedroom door behind me.
"They filed a motion to expedite," she said. No greeting. Katherine didn't waste words. "Angelina's team is citing flight risk. Claiming you took Avery out of the country to avoid jurisdiction."
"She's five. I took her on vacation."
"I know that. The judge will know that. But it's a good tactic and we need to respond before you're back on U.S. soil." She walked me through the counter-filing. Five minutes. Precise. When she hung up, the hallway was dark and quiet and the terra-cotta tiles were cold under my bare feet.
I dressed and slipped out the back door.
The grove was silver and black. I sat on the low stone wall and called Lucas on the burner phone. He picked up on the first ring. Midnight in Italy. Late afternoon in Colorado.
"How's the vacation?" he said.
"Tell me about Brooks."
A pause. The sound of a chair creaking. "Clean. His construction company is legitimate. Licensed in three states. No criminal record, no flags. He ended the engagement with Angelina after your confrontation. Went back to wherever he came from."
"And you believe that?"
"I believe the file." His voice was steady. Careful. "Brooks isn't who I'm watching."
I knew who he was watching. Oliver Marchand. The easy smile that never sat right with me. The way he'd put his hand on Mia's arm like he had the right.
"Anything new on Oliver?"
"Working on it. He bought that ski resort with cash. No mortgage, no partners. The money came from a trust we're still untangling." A beat. "I'll have more soon."
I asked about Dale. Lucas confirmed he was in position near the villa entrance. Rotating through cover the same way he did in Rockford. Hiking trails, rental car at a turnout, two-minute response time. The surveillance cameras were active. The property perimeter was covered.
"She's safe, Tony. Enjoy the trip."
I hung up. Sat in the dark for a while. The trees rustled in the night breeze. The air smelled like wild thyme and warm earth. Somewhere down the hill a dog barked twice and stopped.
I went back inside. Slid into bed.
Mia stirred. She rolled toward me, still mostly asleep. Her hand found my chest.
"You're cold," she said. Eyes still closed.
"I went outside for a minute."
She pressed closer. Her forehead against my collarbone. Her leg hooked over mine. She was warm the way only someone who's been sleeping in Italian linen for hours can be. The whole bed smelled like lavender and her skin.
"Stay," she said. Half a word. Half a breath. Her fingers curled into the front of my shirt.
I stopped thinking about the calls and everything that waited for us back in Colorado.
Her mouth found the base of my throat. Warm. Unhurried. She made a quiet sound against my neck.
I pulled her closer. My hands found the hem of her shirt. The skin underneath felt so warm it ached.
She sat up and pulled her shirt over her head. Moonlight through the open window turned her shoulders silver. Her hair fell around her face. Her glasses were gone. She looked down at me and I knew this was what I fought for.
I reached for her. My hands moved over her waist, her ribs, the dip of her spine. Charcoal dust from my fingers left faint gray lines on her skin. She did not care.
"Come here," I said.
She leaned down. Her mouth met mine. Slow. Tasting. Her hands worked the buttons of my shirt and pushed it off my shoulders. Her palms pressed flat on my chest. My pulse hammered under her touch.
I rolled us. The old bed frame creaked. We both froze and listened. The villa stayed quiet. Avery's room sat down the hall. Nothing moved.
Mia laughed against my mouth.
"Shh," I said.
"You shh."