13. The Spotlight Returns
THE SPOTLIGHT RETURNS
RILEY
The first phone started ringing before the coffee finished brewing.
At first, I thought it was Luca's cell. Then the office line joined in. Then the concierge desk. Then the private extension near the kitchen that almost never made a sound unless something had gone very, very wrong.
By the fourth ring, I stood barefoot in the middle of Luca's kitchen with one hand wrapped around my mug and the other hovering uselessly in the air.
"What is happening?" I asked.
Luca didn't answer.
He stood on the far side of the island, still in dark workout shorts and a black T-shirt, his hair damp from the shower, his eyes fixed on the television mounted across the room. The morning news had split the screen between a polished anchor and a grainy rooftop video.
My stomach dropped.
There he was again—broad shoulders under the harsh lights of the resort's private gym, one knee driven between a younger fighter's shoulder blades, the man's cheek pressed hard to the mat beneath him.
The clip didn't show the shove. It didn't show the words that came before.
It only caught Luca with the fighter's arm pinned behind his back, his face carved in fury as he leaned close enough for the phone to catch every word.
"Say one more word," he warned, "and you'll crawl out of here with one arm."
The caption read: SANTORO COMEBACK?
Below it: #SantoroComeback trends worldwide.
"Oh my God," I whispered.
Ava's spoon clinked softly against her bowl.
She sat at the table in her yellow pajamas, headphones resting around her neck because she said mornings felt "too loud already." Her eyes were locked on the screen, focused in that intense way she got when things didn't make sense.
"Daddy is on TV," she said.
Luca's jaw shifted. "Yeah, baby."
"Why?"
Before he could answer, Donny burst through the side door, phone pressed to his ear, shirt buttoned wrong.
"No, we are not confirming anything," he snapped. "Because there's nothing to confirm." He paused, spotted the television, and pointed at it. "Turn that off."
Luca didn't move.
So I did.
The screen went black, and the kitchen seemed to exhale. For a moment, there was only the smell of coffee, Ava's spoon scraping once against ceramic, and the relentless ringing echoing through the house.
Donny lowered his phone just enough to say, "The resort lines are jammed. Reporters are pretending to book suites. Sponsors are calling. ESPN wants a statement."
Luca's face gave away nothing. But I saw it anyway. That flicker behind his eyes.
Not excitement. Recognition. The world had called his name in the old language—the one that promised it didn't matter whether people loved him or hated him, as long as they couldn't look away.
Ava pushed her bowl away. "Are people coming here?"
My grip tightened on the mug.
"No," Luca said immediately. Firm. Certain. "No one gets near you."
Donny didn't argue, but his silence said enough.
Another phone rang. Then another.
Outside, security crossed the courtyard with clipped urgency, radios raised. The calm, controlled world Luca had built around his daughter was already starting to crack.
I stepped closer to Ava, resting my hand lightly on the back of her chair.
"We're keeping the morning simple," I said, steadying my voice for her sake. "Breakfast, clothes, backpack. Same order."
She studied me. "Even if Dad's blowing up online?"
My throat tightened.
"Especially then."
Luca looked at me across the kitchen. Gratitude flickered there. And something heavier beneath it. The phones kept ringing. For the first time, I understood that fame wasn't a spotlight. It was a door. And once it opened, anyone could try to walk through.
By seven-thirty, Luca's patio had become a war room.
Bianca arrived in white linen, gold hoops, and the kind of calm built under pressure. She set her tablet between Luca's untouched coffee and Donny's half-demolished toast.
"Polite version or honest one?" she asked.
Luca leaned back. "Honest."
"You're gold-plated gasoline right now." She swiped through message after message. "Athletic wear. Energy drinks. A streaming platform. Two fight leagues. One ridiculous offer from a crypto casino that I already deleted because I respect my own eyes."
Donny snorted. "Thank you for your service."
Bianca didn't smile. "The serious ones are talking seven figures for an exhibition."
The words stilled the room.
I stood near the sideboard with Ava's backpack in my hands, pretending to check the zipper because I needed something ordinary to hold. Ava stayed close beside me, unwilling to let Luca out of sight while the house rang and buzzed around us.
Seven figures. For one night of Luca stepping back into a cage. One night of violence dressed up as nostalgia.
Luca's expression didn't change, but his fingers stopped moving against his coffee cup.
There it was again. That smallest pause.
"Exhibition," he said.
"Controlled environment," Bianca replied. "Charity angle. Resort tie-in. Legacy messaging. Same language from everyone."
"Because they all called the same vultures," Donny muttered.
Luca's eyes lifted. "I can handle vultures."
"I know," Donny said. "That's not the point."
No one said what the point was.
Ava. The resort. The grief he had survived by building walls so thick no one could see the cracks. The part of him that had once belonged to crowds chanting his name until it became a drug.
Bianca softened her voice. "You don't have to answer today. I only need to know whether I'm killing these or holding them."
Luca looked down at the tablet.
On the screen was a paused clip from the gym. His body locked over another fighter, arm wrenched behind the man's back. His face hard. Younger, somehow. Not younger in years. Younger in hunger.
My chest tightened because I understood wanting to be seen. I had spent years trying to become impressive enough that rejection couldn't touch me. But this was different. This was a version of him the world wanted to buy back from the dead.
Luca's thumb brushed the tablet's edge.
"Hold them," he said.
Donny swore under his breath.
Bianca's mouth tightened, professional enough not to react and human enough to fail a little. "All of them?"
"Not the crypto casino."
A weak laugh slipped out of me.
Luca looked over.
For one second, the heat between us cut through the noise. Not playful heat. Something sharper. A question neither of us had asked yet.
Then Ava appeared in the doorway with her shoes in her hands. "Can we go before more phones ring?"
I nodded. "Yes. We'll get some beach time before camp drop-off, okay? Just you, me, and a deeply unqualified sandcastle architect."
As I reached for Ava's backpack, Luca looked back at the paused image of himself in the cage.
It lasted only a second. But longing didn't need long to show its face.
The photographers were already waiting at the beach access.
I saw them before Ava did, clustered near the wooden walkway that led down to the sand. Cameras hung from their necks, lenses already pointed toward the private stretch Luca's house overlooked. Sunglasses hid their eyes, but not their intent.
It was barely nine in the morning.
The air smelled like salt and sunscreen, the kind of bright, easy summer day that should have been filled with sandcastles and popsicles. Instead, it felt sharp. Watched.
I slowed my steps.
Ava skipped ahead of me, a neon bucket swinging from her hand, her sunhat slipping sideways over one eye. "Riley, come on! The tide is low!"
"I'm coming," I said, forcing my voice to stay light.
One of the photographers shifted, angling for a better shot. Another lifted his camera.
"Riley," Ava said, turning back, "why are those people here?"
I closed the distance between us quickly, taking her free hand. "They're being nosy."
"Are they allowed?"
The honest answer was complicated.
"Not near you," I said.
A man stepped closer to the edge of the path, just far enough to stay technically off private property. "Riley! Is Luca planning a comeback fight?"
Ava's grip tightened.
"You need to step back," I said, keeping my body between them and Ava.
"Is that his daughter?" another voice called. "Ava, can you wave?"
My stomach dropped.
I shifted, placing myself between Ava and the cameras, angling my body so she was shielded as much as possible. "Eyes on me," I murmured to her. "We're going to walk down to the sand, okay?"
She nodded, but her fingers curled tighter around mine. We moved.
The wooden planks creaked under our feet as we headed down the path. The ocean stretched out ahead, bright and endless, but behind us the clicking of shutters followed like a swarm.
"Riley," Ava whispered, "why do they know my name?"
Because someone told them. Because nothing about Luca's life stayed private for long. Because this was the cost of everything he'd built—and everything trying to drag him back.
"They shouldn't," I said quietly. "And we're not going to talk to them."
Another voice rose behind us. "Is Luca signing with Vale? Is that why you're here?"
My pulse spiked. I didn't turn around.
We reached the sand, and I guided Ava farther down the shoreline, away from the access point, away from the cluster of cameras. The farther we walked, the quieter it got, until the only sound was the surf rolling in and Ava's breathing starting to steady.
"Can we still build the castle?" she asked.
I crouched beside her, brushing sand off her knee. "Of course we can."
She studied my face for a second, like she was checking something. Then she nodded and dropped to her knees, already digging with determined focus.
I stayed standing a moment longer, scanning the path behind us. The photographers hadn't followed onto the private stretch. But they were still there.
Waiting. Watching.
My phone buzzed in my pocket.
Luca: Everything okay?
I stared at the message, anger and something colder twisting together in my chest.
No, I typed, then erased it.
Then I wrote the truth.
Ava is okay. But this needs to stop.