My hand is shaking. I curl my fingers into a fist.
Don’t hope. Don’t you dare hope.
My lungs won’t expand. The air sits right there, an inch from where I need it, and won’t come in. I press my palm flat against the desk. Count the grain lines in the wood.
Being touched like I mattered. And then being left in the cold sheets to wonder if I’d dreamed it.
The pen moves across the page again. Transaction dates. Payment amounts. Vendor names that lead to shells that lead to nowhere. But nowhere always leads somewhere if you follow it long enough.
Someone is stealing from this family.
I write until my hand cramps. The numbers hold still. The numbers make sense.
The ache behind my ribs doesn’t.
My pen keeps moving. Transaction after transaction. A trail that someone worked hard to bury.
Don’t hope.
I turn the page.
12
DANTE
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it in the shower. Water scalding my back, hands braced against tile, her taste still on my tongue.
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it while shaving. The blade steady, even when my pulse isn’t. My father’s face in the mirror, those last eleven years carved into every line.
It can’t happen again.
I repeat it during the morning briefing, while Renzo outlines security concerns I can’t remember five seconds later. Valentino movements at the docks. A shipment rerouted through Baton Rouge. Words that slide off me like rain.
Because all I can think about is how she looked at me after. Soft. Trusting. The look that sent me running.
It can’t happen again.
Forty-seven times today. I’ve been counting.
And none of it matters, because it’s 9:00 a.m. and I’m standing in the kitchen asking Maria what my wife had for breakfast.
“Nothing, Don Santoro.” Maria doesn’t meet my eyes. “She took tea and went to the study. Been there since seven.”
Seven. Two hours without food. Since yesterday.
“She didn’t ask for anything?”
“No, sir. Should I bring her something?”
Yes. Eggs and toast and those beignets Nonna Rosa keeps frozen for special occasions. Whatever will put color back in her cheeks.
Because of me.
“No.” The word comes out too sharp. “Leave her be.”
