21. Nick
NICK
By the time I open my eyes the next day, Ivy is already dressed. This time, she wears her own clothes rather than a costume. Dark jeans, a fitted black top, boots. No wig or mask. Just Ivy, standing by the window of the safe house, gazing out.
“Good morning.” Propping myself up on my elbow, I run a hand down my face. The clock by the bed tells me it’s well past two in the afternoon—I guess the time change is fucking with me, though the fact that it took hours to fall asleep didn’t help. “When did you get up?”
“Oh, I don’t know. A while ago.” She glances over her shoulder. There’s a twinkle in her eye I would never have seen a few weeks ago. “Get up. I’ve been waiting to show you something, and you chose today of all days to sleep in.”
I don’t bother asking what it is she wants to show me, because I know better by now.
She’ll only dig her heels in and refuse harder than ever to give me a clue.
Instead of pressing the issue, I get up and splash my face with water before getting dressed.
She’s waiting by the door when I finish—even though she’s trying to hide it, I can tell she’s excited about something.
I like seeing her like this. Like a kid, almost. The kid she used to be.
I shut that down before it has a chance to take root and get any bigger. It’s bad enough I can’t forget what I heard last night. She slid into that role so easily. It was damn uncanny, and I’m still a little thrown by it.
No trace of that today. Today, she’s smiling as we take the stairs down and step out into the kind of day that makes a man glad he’s alive.
The air is warm but not heavy. It carries traces of coffee and bread from the bakery two doors down.
Something green and alive from the nearest canal.
She turns left without hesitating, moving at a pace that says she’s walked this route a hundred times.
I fall in beside her and let her lead the way.
It’s about three blocks in that I realize I’ve never seen her like this.
This isn’t the woman who turned a grown man into a puddle on the floor last night.
Not the woman who fanned through passports like they were playing cards.
This is something else. She moves through the streets as if they belong to her.
Not the way Vincenzo’s world belonged to her, like she had to survey her surroundings all the time.
More like the way a place belongs to someone who chose it on their own.
Freely. Her shoulders are lower and her stride is easier.
She looks up at buildings when we pass them—not checking sightlines.
Actually looking, the way people look at things they like.
“Should you be showing your face around here?” I ask. Really, it’s amazing I waited this long before I couldn’t help voicing that question.
She gives me a sideways glance. “This part of the city was mine. They never came here. Vincenzo wouldn’t be caught dead in a tourist area, and his people followed his lead.
There are too many cameras around, for one thing.
Too many foreigners, too much exposure. He stuck to private places—clubs, restaurants, places where he could control the guest list.”
We step around a man walking a small, fluffy dog. “I figured that out early and made it work for me. Everything on the other side of the canal was his. Everything on this side was mine.”
“Nobody ever checked up on you?”
“I was careful. No patterns or regulars. Nothing anyone could trace.” She pauses a beat. “I needed something that was just for me. I think everyone does.”
I can’t argue with that. Years of living inside someone else’s machine, being shaped and directed? Of course she carved out a space they couldn’t touch. The fact that she managed it under that level of control says more about her than any dossier ever could.
She leads me down a side street that opens onto a small piazza.
There’s a church on one side, so old the stone is worn smooth in some spots.
Across from it, there’s a restaurant with a faded green awning and tables spilling out onto the cobblestones.
It’s the kind of place a guidebook would call a hidden gem, which usually means it’s neither hidden nor a gem, but this one might be the exception.
The tables are half-full with locals and a handful of what look like tourists, considering the selfies they keep taking.
The smell coming from inside is the kind that makes your stomach sit up and pay attention.
“This is my favorite place in Milan.” She says it simply. No fanfare. At the same time, she glances at me when she says it, like she’s checking whether I’m paying attention. The fact that she cares whether I am tells me more than the words do.
We take a table outside, shaded by the awning.
She doesn’t look at the menu. When she orders, she does it in Italian, speaking so fast I catch only every third word.
Whatever she says makes the waiter smile and nod like she just complimented his mother’s cooking.
He disappears inside, and a moment later, a woman comes out.
She’s around our age. Olive skin, dark hair pulled back at the nape of her neck, wide brown eyes that go even wider when they land on Ivy.
“Dio mio,” she breathes. Then she’s moving, rounding the table, pulling Ivy out of her chair into a hug that lasts longer than a casual greeting.
A lot longer. She then holds Ivy by the shoulders and looks at her the way you look at someone you’ve been worried about, then says something in rapid Italian that I don’t catch but makes Ivy laugh.
She actually laughs, the real kind, the kind I’ve heard more often lately but still not often enough.
“Lucia.” Ivy switches to English with a glance in my direction. “This is Nick.”
Lucia turns to me, wearing a smile that warms up a degree at a time. “Nick,” she repeats while looking me over with an openness that borders on appraisal. Is she making sure I’m worth Ivy’s time? “Very nice. Welcome.”
Then she turns back to Ivy, takes her face in both hands, and says something else in Italian.
Whatever it is, Ivy’s expression goes soft in a way I’ve rarely seen from her.
Lucia kisses both her cheeks—lingering, familiar—before squeezing her hands and disappearing back inside with a promise to bring something special.
All I can do is sit and watch the whole exchange.
The way Lucia touched her, the comfort of it.
The intimacy. Ivy didn’t stiffen or pull back, the way she does with almost everyone else in the world.
The way Lucia looked at her wasn’t the way a friend looks at a friend.
Or maybe it was, but it was the way a very specific kind of friend looks at a very specific kind of friend.
Food arrives. Small plates, nothing I ordered, but all of it is incredible.
Bruschetta with tomatoes so red they look painted.
Some kind of whipped cheese with honey and pistachios.
Thin slices of prosciutto draped over melon so ripe and juicy I almost can’t believe how good it is.
There’s a carafe of white wine cold enough to sweat.
For a little while, it’s enough to sit and eat and enjoy the rich, fresh flavors. But while I do, I can’t help wondering how to ask a question without sounding like the kind of man I don’t want to be.
Lucia comes back twice. The first time, it’s to bring more bread. The second time, she refills the wine. That’s when she rests her hand on Ivy’s shoulder and lets it slide down her arm as she walks away.
Fuck it. I have to do it. “So. You and Lucia.”
Ivy looks at me over the rim of her glass. Her expression is perfectly neutral. “Me and Lucia.”
“How do you know each other?”
“We used to sleep together.”
That’s when I choke on my wine. Not a subtle, dignified clearing of my throat. I actually choke, the kind where the liquid goes down the wrong pipe, and my body stages a revolt. I cough into my fist while she watches me with patient amusement.
“Are you all right?” she asks. Oh, yeah, she’s enjoying this. Not cruelly. More like the way you enjoy catching someone off guard when you like them.
“Fine,” I manage before clearing my throat. “Just fine.”
“You asked.”
“I did ask.” I pick up the wine and take a sip, then set it down. I need to move on. This is not the hill I’m going to die on, no matter what my face is doing right now. “How long?”
“On and off for a couple of years. It ended well. We’re friends.” She says it the way she says most things: directly, no apology, no checking to see how it lands. Because she doesn’t owe me an explanation, and we both know it.
That doesn’t stop me from sitting here with an expression on my face I can’t seem to get rid of. When I catch my own reflection in the restaurant window, it’s pretty damn obvious I’m rattled.
She takes a bite of bruschetta and chews thoughtfully before asking, “Does it bother you?”
“No,” I say, too quickly.
“Liar.” But she says it gently, the way she’s been saying things to me lately. Like the word has a softer landing when it’s aimed at me than it would at anyone else.
“It doesn’t bother me. I’m just—” I have to search for the word. “Adjusting.”
“Adjusting.” She repeats it like she’s testing it in her mouth. “To the idea that I had a life while you thought I was dead?”
“To the scope of it.” I lean back in my chair, narrowing my eyes at her. “I spent twelve years with a ghost. You spent those years actually living. I’m catching up.”
Something shifts in her face. It’s not pity—she doesn’t do pity—but something closer to understanding.
“It wasn’t all like this, you know. Just to be fair.
In fact, most of it wasn’t like this. Lucia was one of a few good things.
This restaurant, this neighborhood, they were the exception.
The rest of it was work and training and doing what I was told. ”
“I understand.”
“Do you?” It’s not a challenge. It’s a genuine question.
“I’m learning.” And I mean it. Every day I learn something new about the years I missed, and every day I have to decide whether to grieve the version of her I lost or be grateful for the one I found. Most days, it’s both.
She holds my gaze another beat before taking a sip of her wine. A breeze moves through the piazza and ruffles the edge of the awning. For a few seconds, everything is quiet and good.
I should leave it alone. I know I should. But I’ve never been very good at leaving things alone where she’s concerned. “What about men?”
Slowly, her eyebrow arches. It’s a warning shot, and I see it, and I keep going anyway, because that’s apparently who I am. “How many have there been?”
“Are we really doing this?”
“I’m curious,” I tell her with a shrug.
“You’re jealous.”
“I’m curious and also possibly jealous, and I would like an answer.”
“How many women have you been with since you thought I was dead?” she counters, leaning forward with her arms folded on the table.
Ouch. “That’s different.”
“Exactly how is it different?”
“I thought you were dead.”
“I didn’t know you existed.” She lets that land, and it sits heavy in my chest. “So, by your logic, we were both single and free to make our own choices. Which means the number doesn’t matter for either of us. Unless you want to tell me yours first?”
I open my mouth. Close it. Open it again. “Let’s talk about something else.”
“I thought you might say that.” The smile she gives me is small and knowing.
I would be annoyed by it if it wasn’t so goddamn beautiful.
She knows she won. Hell, she won before the conversation started, because she’s smarter than me in all the ways that count.
The sooner I make peace with that, the better off I’ll be.
We finish the meal slowly. Lucia brings dessert without being asked—some kind of almond cake with powdered sugar that melts on the tongue.
Along with that, we have coffee. By the time we leave, the sun has crossed the sky.
It’s heading for the horizon with the kind of unhurried inevitability that only happens in places where time doesn’t feel like it’s working against you.
Ivy leads again. We walk through narrow streets that open onto wider ones.
We pass shopfronts and churches and a small park where children are playing while their parents sit on benches and argue about something in rapid Italian.
She doesn’t narrate or explain. She just walks, and I walk beside her, and that’s enough.
At one point, her hand finds mine. She doesn’t look at me when she does it. She just reaches over and threads her fingers through mine like it’s something she’s always done, and we keep walking.
She stops on a bridge over one of the smaller canals.
Our hands are still linked when she leans against the railing and looks out over the water.
The light turns everything gold and amber and makes the yellow and cream buildings on either side of the water glow.
For a long time, it’s enough to stand by her side and admire the way the water sparkles where the sunbeams hit it.
It’s enough to stand here, arms touching, breathing together in this moment. Neither of us needs to say a word. It’s enough to be here. It’s even better when she leans closer, her head almost touching my shoulder.
“This is a good spot,” I decide.
“I used to come here after jobs to decompress.” She takes a deep breath and lets it out slowly as I watch.
In this light, I see the faint scar at her temple.
I’ve noticed it before, and I’ve never asked about it, and I probably never will unless she brings it up first. “I wanted to feel like a normal person.”
“Did it work?”
“Sometimes. More than anything else did.” Now her head rests against my shoulder, and I welcome the weight as much as I welcome the music coming through an open window somewhere along the canal. It’s a slow song, kind of pretty, and it fits the moment perfectly.
Then she turns her head until her mouth is close to my ear, and I can feel the warmth of her breath on my skin. “In case you were wondering,” she murmurs, “I’ve never done this with anyone else.”
“That’s good to know,” I reply. She’s giving me something she’s never given anyone. The simplest thing in the world. Her trust, her true self. I bring her hand up and press my lips to her knuckles, and she lets me do it.
The sun slowly sinks and eventually disappears, but neither of us is in any hurry.