"I'm fine. I'm with the Morettis."
Silence. Then: "I know."
"Papà—"
"Come home, Serafina." The warmth doesn't waver. That's always been the terrifying part. It never does. "This situation has become complicated. There are people who want to use you. Men without our values, who see you as a means to an end. I can protect you."
"The men who came through the door tonight. Were they yours?"
"I send people when I'm concerned. It's what fathers do."
"That's not an answer."
"Basta— enough." Softer. The Italian surfaces the way it always does when he wants me off balance. "Vieni a casa, cara— come back to me. You belong here.Capisci?"
"I'm not a bargaining chip."
A pause. When he speaks again, the warmth remains, but the velvet has thinned just enough to reveal what lies beneath. "No. You're my daughter. And I will bring you home one way or another. The only question is how much damage gets done in between."
The line clicks.
I stand there holding a dead phone.
My hand is shaking. I didn't notice until now. I set the phone down on the desk very carefully, because the alternative is throwing it through the window — and I am a grown woman who has survived decades of that voice, and I am absolutely not going to fall apart in front of Luca Moretti.
My hand is still shaking.
"Your father doesn't getto make threats in my house."
Quiet. Absolute.
I turn.
He's closer than he was. I don't know when he moved. His expression gives nothing away — except his stillness. The stillness of a decision already made.
"He does it with such affection." My voice comes out steadier than I deserve. "That's what I can never get used to. A lifetime of that voice and I still—" I stop.
I don't finish sentences like that out loud. Not to anyone.
Luca doesn't fill the silence. He waits — like he has all the time in the world, like he's decided this is where he's standing until I'm done needing him to stand there.
Nobody has ever done that before. Not once.
I look at him, and I make a mistake. I actually look at him — the controlled set of his shoulders, the careful way he's holding himself still, the man who not long ago took apart intruders with his bare hands and is now just. Waiting. For me.
"How do you do it?" I ask. "Knowing that the people who are supposed to protect you are the ones you should be afraid of."
Pain crosses his face. Fast. Gone.
"You build something else." His voice has dropped. "Something that's yours."
The room is very still.
I take one step forward.
That's all it takes.
He crossesto me in two strides, and his hand comes up to my jaw — slow, deliberate, giving me every opportunity to object — and when the word doesn't come, his thumb traces my cheekbone once.
