29. Letting Go of Fear
LETTING GO OF FEAR
RILEY
Amonth had passed since Luca pointed a camera at Mercer Vale and dragged Victor's entire scheme into the Miami spotlight.
The broadcast had done more than save Luca's reputation.
It had given investigators their first loose thread, and Victor's empire unraveled fast—bribed fighters, hidden payments, intimidation, and enough financial fraud to prove his downfall was more than professional—it was criminal.
Every few days brought another headline, another former associate suddenly eager to cooperate.
The resort kept running through all of it. Guests still arrived. Events stayed on schedule. Staff showed up and carried on while investigators, attorneys, and reporters circled everything happening behind the scenes.
Luca followed the updates, but he no longer carried them into every room with him.
Healing, apparently, wasn't the relief that came after surviving. It was teaching the parts of you still braced for disaster that the danger had passed.
That was how the three of us ended up on Dr. Rivera's couch, Luca between Ava and me, his knee bouncing beneath my palm.
"When you're ready, tell me what happened when you found her."
The therapist's voice stayed soft, but Luca flinched like she'd struck him.
Beside me, Ava pressed her shoulder harder against his arm.
I sat on his other side, our knees touching, every rigid line of his body telegraphing the tension he tried to contain.
The office smelled faintly of lavender and old books.
Somewhere behind us, a white-noise machine hissed like distant rain.
Luca stared at the rug.
"I came home from a run." His voice sounded scraped raw. "I remember being annoyed because Zoe had left dishes in the sink."
His mouth twisted, but no smile came.
Ava's fingers found his. He folded his hand around hers automatically.
"What did you see?" Dr. Rivera asked.
His chest rose once, sharply.
"She was on the kitchen floor."
The room seemed to shrink around us.
I reached for his other hand, giving him time to pull away. He didn't. His fingers closed around mine so tightly my rings pressed into my skin.
"I thought she'd slipped." His gaze stayed fixed below us. "I said her name. I kept saying it because..." He swallowed. "Because if I said it enough times, she had to answer."
Ava went still.
Every instinct in me wanted to stop this, to protect both of them from the next sentence.
But Luca had spent three years protecting everyone by bleeding alone.
Maybe love wasn't always dragging someone away from the fire.
Maybe sometimes it was sitting beside them while they finally admitted they'd been burned.
"What did you do next?" Dr. Rivera asked.
"I checked her pulse. Called 911. Started compressions." His breathing turned shallow. "I knew before the ambulance came that she was gone. But I kept going. I broke one of her ribs."
His voice cracked on the last word.
Ava climbed into his lap. Luca gathered her against him, his body folding around hers.
"You were trying to help Mommy," she whispered.
Something inside him gave way.
The first sob tore out of him so suddenly I stopped breathing. He bowed over Ava, shaking, one hand still locked around mine. Tears slid unchecked down his face, his grief raw enough to look like rage.
"I couldn't save her," he said.
Dr. Rivera leaned forward. "Luca, look at your daughter."
He did.
"You stayed," she said. "You loved Zoe. You tried to save her. And afterward, you kept showing up for Ava. Grief may have convinced you that surviving her was a betrayal, Luca. It wasn't."
Luca pressed his forehead to Ava's hair. I moved closer until my shoulder touched his. For once, he didn't apologize for breaking. He let us hold him.
Dr. Rivera let the silence settle before she spoke again.
"Riley, what happens inside you when Luca pulls away?"
My silence answered first.
I looked at the tissue box on the table instead of at him. Luca's hand was still wrapped around mine, damp from tears. Ava had shifted sideways in his lap, one ear pressed to his chest as if she needed proof his heart was still there.
"I tell myself he needs space," I said.
"And what do you believe?"
My throat tightened.
"That he's leaving."
Luca's fingers moved against mine.
I hated how quickly the truth came once the door opened. "Not just for a night. I mean, really leaving. Deciding I'm too much. That Ava and I are too complicated. That I was stupid for believing anyone would stay after they saw all of it."
"All of what?" Dr. Rivera asked.
"The panic. The second-guessing. How fast I can turn one unanswered text into an entire ending."
Ava lifted her head. "You do that?"
A laugh escaped me, thin and embarrassed. "Sometimes."
She considered this with the solemn focus she usually saved for puzzles. "Daddy checks the locks three times. Four if he thinks no one is watching."
Luca rubbed a hand over his face. "Thank you, piccola."
"You both do scared things," she said.
Dr. Rivera smiled. "That's a very good way to put it."
Ava settled again, then went quiet. Her gaze drifted toward the window where late sunlight made gold squares on the carpet.
"Mommy sang when I was scared."
Luca's whole body stilled beneath her.
"What did she sing?" I asked gently.
Ava hummed three soft notes, uncertain at first. Then the melody found her. It was simple, sweet, and a little uneven in the way childhood memories were—more feeling than tune.
Luca closed his eyes.
"I remember the blue blanket," Ava said. "She tucked it under my feet. She said monsters didn't like songs."
His breath hitched, but this time he didn't break apart. He kissed the top of her head.
"She had a terrible singing voice," he whispered.
Ava frowned. "No, she didn't."
"She absolutely did."
"She sounded pretty."
"Yeah." His voice softened. "She always did to us."
The words sat between them, tender and true.
I leaned in, and Luca opened his arm without looking. Ava wriggled until we were all tangled together on the couch, knees and elbows and damp cheeks pressed close. Luca's mouth brushed my temple. Ava's hand slipped into mine.
For the first time, being held didn't feel like something I had to prepare to lose.
The porch swing creaked beneath us as Luca pushed once with the heel of his boot.
Ava had fallen asleep in the car and barely stirred when he carried her inside.
Now she was curled on the living room sofa under the blue blanket she'd mentioned in therapy, one hand tucked beneath her cheek.
Through the open screen door, I could hear the soft murmur of the cartoon Luca had left playing low.
Outside, dusk settled over the yard in warm layers. The air smelled like cut grass and rain that hadn't arrived yet.
Luca sat beside me with his forearms braced on his knees. He hadn't said much since we left Dr. Rivera's office, but the silence felt different. Not shut down. Not gone.
His phone buzzed against the wooden armrest.
His shoulders tightened on instinct. I watched the reaction move through him before he could hide it. The glance. The held breath. The old pull toward whatever problem demanded him loudest.
"You can check it," I said.
He picked up the phone, read the screen, and went very still.
"What is it?"
"Investors."
My stomach dipped. "Bad?"
He scanned the message again. "Not exactly."
He handed me the phone.
The email praised the public response to his statement, noted the unexpected surge in support for the resort, and requested a meeting to renegotiate the investment terms. The language was polished and bloodless, but the meaning underneath it was obvious.
They needed him now.
"They're backing down," I said.
"They're repositioning." His mouth curved without humor. "Different suit, same instinct."
The swing slowed.
Not long ago, he would already have been inside calling lawyers, opening spreadsheets, turning himself into the version of Luca who believed he could outwork fear.
Instead, he locked the screen and set the phone facedown.
"That's it?" I asked.
"For tonight."
I studied him. "You don't have to prove anything to me."
"I know." He leaned back, his shoulder finding mine. "That's why I'm staying."
Something in my chest softened.
He reached for my hand, threading our fingers together. "I spent years acting like every crisis was urgent enough to outrank my life."
"And now?"
"Now I know the difference between something that needs my attention and something I let take me away from my life."
From inside, Ava shifted beneath the blanket and sighed. Luca looked toward the door, then back at me. The phone buzzed again. He didn't touch it.
Instead, he pushed the swing into motion and kissed my knuckles as the first porch light clicked on above us.
The sky had deepened to violet by the time Luca spoke again.
"What would you want?"
I turned toward him. "For dinner?"
"For when I ask you."
My breath caught. "Ask me what?"
One corner of his mouth lifted. "You're smarter than that."
The swing creaked beneath us as I stared at him.
"We're not engaged."
"Not yet."
My heart gave one hard, disorienting thump.
Luca looked toward the yard as though he hadn't just dropped two words capable of rearranging my entire future.
"Not yet?" I repeated.
He finally glanced at me, his expression far too calm.
"I wouldn't make any dramatic life decisions in the next few weeks."
A startled laugh escaped me. "Are you warning me that you're going to propose?"
"I'm warning you that I've been known to act without much notice."
"You've also been known to get punched in the head for a living."
"And yet my judgment remains excellent."
"Debatable."
"I'm letting you prepare emotionally."
"For romance?"
"For me."
"That seems wise."
His thumb moved across my knuckles, but the humor in his eyes softened.
"I'm not asking tonight," he said.
"Why not?"
"Because you deserve an actual question, Riley. Not me casually deciding we're getting married and waiting for you to catch up."
I felt the words take root somewhere tender.