11. The Boy Before the Fighter #2
"Then you're lucky. Wanting adventure causes trouble." She patted Ava's hand, then glanced at Luca. "Your father was very adventurous."
Luca went still. I didn't understand the history, only that it landed somewhere deep.
A staff member approached with a clipboard, and Luca shifted into efficiency—appointments, medications, quiet questions.
But when his mother laughed at something Ava said, his attention snapped back.
He watched that laugh like he was trying to memorize it.
And I understood then this wasn't about a misplaced pill box.
It was about loving someone still right in front of you—and feeling them slip, inch by invisible inch.
Luca disappeared with the clipboard and the staff member, shoulders squared like he could intimidate biology into cooperating.
Donny lingered just long enough to mutter something about preventing his brother from interrogating a receptionist into early retirement, then followed.
Donny had driven separately so he could stay for Ma's appointment, leaving me at the puzzle table with Ava and the woman who had raised them both.
Which felt less like being left alone and more like being evaluated.
Mrs. Santoro watched me over the rim of her coffee. "You're nervous."
"I'm not."
"You blinked too much."
"I have expressive eyes."
"You have terrible lying skills."
Ava didn't look up. "Riley lies when she says she is not tired."
"Thank you, Ava."
"You are welcome."
Mrs. Santoro laughed, delighted. "I like her."
The compliment landed warmer than it should have, settling somewhere I didn't want to examine too closely.
"You're good with my granddaughter," she said.
"Ava makes it easy."
Ava placed another piece with precision. "I do not make things easy. I make them accurate."
"That too."
Mrs. Santoro's gaze softened as she watched her. "She reminds me of Luca when he was little."
That caught my attention faster than I liked. "Luca?"
"Oh yes. Donny came out loud, fists first. Luca came out watching." She traced the edge of a puzzle piece. "Too much in his head. Sensitive. Quiet. Always noticing what people needed before they said it. He hated school."
I tried to picture Luca—tattoos, muscle, control—as a quiet boy swallowing more than he said.
"Was he shy?"
"Not shy. Careful." She glanced toward the hallway. "Teachers thought he was lazy because reading was hard. Kids thought he was stupid because he didn't talk fast. He'd come home with his jaw tight and say nothing. Then one day he came home with a split lip and no lunchbox."
My stomach tightened. "What happened?"
"He punched the boy who took it." Her mouth flattened, not quite pride. "After that, no one called him stupid where he could hear."
Ava slid a blue piece into place. "Daddy is not stupid."
"No, topolina," Mrs. Santoro said gently. "Your daddy was never stupid. But after that day, people looked at him differently. Some were afraid. Some were impressed. Either way, they looked."
Her fingers worried the edge of a puzzle piece.
"He'd spent years being ignored until someone wanted to laugh at him. Then suddenly everyone knew his name. Luca learned fear worked faster than explaining himself—and making noise worked better than disappearing."
I thought of the old fight footage. The cocky grin for the cameras. The taunts, the tabloid headlines, the man who had once seemed determined to make the whole world either love him or hate him.
As long as they were watching, they couldn't overlook him.
Mrs. Santoro sighed. "He got very good at giving people something to talk about. If they were going to decide who he was anyway, he wanted to choose the story first."
Down the hall, Luca's voice drifted back—calm, controlled, unmistakably adult. But now there was another version layered beneath it.
A boy who had discovered intimidation could protect him and attention could prove he mattered. A man who had made himself impossible to ignore, then built walls when being truly seen became too dangerous.
My phone buzzed.
Maddie: Six weeks left on nanny duty. Please tell me Miami is making you rich, connected, and not emotionally attached to your boss, his abs, or his baggage.
I stared at the screen too long.
Six weeks. The number felt suddenly small. Final.
"What is it?" Mrs. Santoro asked.
"My sister," I said, locking my phone. "Just reminding me time exists."
"She sounds annoying."
"She is. I love her."
"That's family." Her gaze flicked toward the hallway, then back to me. "Luca doesn't bring people here."
The puzzle piece in my hand suddenly didn't fit anywhere.
"I came because of Ava."
"Of course," she said, in a tone that didn't believe me at all. "That's how trouble starts. You tell yourself one reason, then your heart starts unpacking without permission."
Ava looked up. "Hearts do not unpack. Suitcases unpack."
"See?" Mrs. Santoro patted her hand. "Accurate."
I smiled because Ava expected it, because Mrs. Santoro was watching, because the alternative was admitting too much.
I came to Miami with a plan: earn money, make connections, build something bigger. I hadn't planned on Luca's mother remembering the boy before the man. I hadn't planned on Ava saving me a puzzle piece. And I definitely hadn't planned on a few weeks sounding like a warning.
Luca came back ten minutes later with the appointment confirmed, the medication list updated, and the expression of a man who had successfully rearranged one tiny corner of chaos while knowing the rest of it still waited.
His mother noticed immediately.
"Stop making that face," she said.
"What face?"
"The one where you think your worry is handsome."
Donny choked behind me.
Luca kissed the top of her head anyway. "I'll pick you up Tuesday."
"I have a shuttle."
"I'll pick you up Tuesday."
She narrowed her eyes at him, then at me. "He was born bossy. Don't let the muscles fool you."
"I'll stay vigilant," I said.
Ava slid the finished puzzle into its box with surgical precision. "Nonna and I completed the lighthouse."
"Because we are geniuses," Mrs. Santoro said.
"Because the missing corner was under your coffee cup."
"That too."
The goodbye should have been simple, but Luca watched his mother in the rearview mirror until the building swallowed her.
Silence settled in. Ava put on her headphones, fingers tracing the seam of her shorts. Luca drove with both hands on the wheel, jaw tight.
My phone rang as we hit the causeway: Bianca Rhodes.
I hesitated.
"Take it," Luca said.
So I did.