13. Serena #3
“You didn’t know because I didn’t call you,” I say.
His shoulders drop. “I know.”
“And I didn’t call you because the last time I did, you let it ring.”
The room gets very still.
Rocco nods once. “I know.”
I’m sick of those two words. They’re not enough. They’re not useless either.
“Do you?” I ask.
“I know I left you alone when you asked for me.”
My throat tightens. “I didn’t ask.”
“You called.”
“Once.”
“Once should have been enough.”
Oh. That one hurts. Because I wanted the man I married to understand that one call from me should’ve mattered more than every Castellano war, every video, every lie.
Timing has never been our friend.
“Yes,” I say.
His eyes are wet. Not crying. But close enough that I look away first. I have my own department to manage.
Matteo comes back with a packet from the nurse. He reads the room instantly.
He stops near the door. “I can wait outside.”
“No,” I say.
Rocco flinches. Small. Barely. I see it. I don’t take it back.
Matteo stays.
Claire comes in with discharge notes. Rest. Fluids. Call if bleeding, severe pain, fever, dizziness. Rocco listens to every word like he’ll be tested at gunpoint later.
Then Claire asks, “Who is taking you home?”
Home. The word lands badly.
Lucia comes back into the room just in time to hear it. “Me,” she says.
Matteo says, “Us.”
Rocco says nothing. That silence is loudest.
When she leaves, Rocco stands. “I can have a car brought around.” He corrects himself before I speak. “Or not.”
Lucia murmurs, “Character development in real time. Horrifying.”
Rocco turns to Lucia. “Your car is safer than mine right now.”
That shuts everyone up.
“Why?” Matteo asks.
Rocco’s eyes move to him. There is a whole ugly conversation in that look. Jealousy. Hatred. Restraint holding both by the throat.
“Because someone got close enough to photograph Serena at your flat.”
My blood turns cold. Lucia says something sharp. Matteo’s face goes blank.
“When?” he asks.
“Earlier. Through the stairwell window.”
My hand goes to my stomach. “You didn’t tell me.”
Rocco doesn’t flinch. “No.”
“Why?”
“Because you were in pain.”
That is a good answer. Which I resent.
“Who?” Matteo asks.
Rocco doesn’t look away from me. “I don’t know yet.”
Yet. That word is a promise and a threat. For once, neither is pointed at me.
“No silent man language,” I say. “I’m tired, pregnant, and recently attached to monitors. Use words.”
Lucia points at me. “That one is mine.”
Rocco breathes out. “I placed men outside Lucia’s block. Not inside. Now I want to put men on every landing. But I won’t unless you agree.”
There. Honest. I can see how much it costs him not to dress it up.
I think about the photo. The stairwell. Someone watching through old glass while I held up the scan picture. My skin crawls.
“No men inside,” I say.
“Okay.”
“No one at the door. No one talks to Lucia’s neighbors. One car on the street, but not directly in front.”
Matteo says, “Two streets gives better sight lines.”
Not happy. But listening. “Two streets,” Rocco says.
I glare at both of them. “Was that silent man language?”
“That was logistics,” Matteo says.
Lucia nods. “I’ll allow it.”
I’m so tired I almost smile. Almost.
The nurse brings a wheelchair again. I hate it again. I sit again.
Rocco moves like he wants to push it. Lucia grabs the handles first. “Absolutely not,” she tells both of them.
And that’s how I leave the hospital being pushed by my tiny furious sister while my husband, my not-bodyguard, and possibly half of Edinburgh’s criminal underworld rearrange themselves around my boundaries.
Very normal.
Outside, the rain has stopped. The air smells wet and metallic. Matteo brings the gray car around.
Rocco stands beside me at the curb, hands loose at his sides, eyes moving over every shadow. He looks like violence wearing restraint as a too-tight coat.
“Serena,” he says.
I look at him. For a second, neither of us says anything. I can see the question in him. Can I come? Can I follow? He doesn’t ask. Maybe he’s learning not every want deserves air.
“Go back to your hotel,” I say.
His mouth tightens. “All right.”
“Rest.”
That slips out before I can stop it. Now I’m worried about his sleep. Someone sedate me.
Rocco looks at me like I’ve touched him. “I will.”
Liar. We both know it. I’m too tired to call him on it.
Matteo opens the car door. Lucia helps me in. Rocco steps back. Not far. Enough.
I pause with one hand on the door.
There is a question sitting in me, mean and sad and too big for the curb. It has been sitting there since the monitor showed my baby’s heartbeat. Since Rocco stood in the doorway and looked like the world had ended because he had to wait where I put him.
I wanted him to believe me. That’s the part that guts me. I stood in that office and told him the truth with my whole chest, and I wanted, more than I’ve ever wanted anything, for that to be enough.
It wasn’t.
I look at my husband.
“Do you know how much I wanted you to believe me?”
Rocco goes still. The whole street seems to go still with him.
I don’t wait for an answer.
I get in the car and close the door.