Page 265 of Merciless Daddy

The woman under protection.

I knew what possession sounded like. I knew the cold weight of my father’s my. I knew how Gianni had used belonging as a locked door.

This was different.

I bent over the cake before anyone could see my eyes. My next line came out crooked.

Donatella sighed.

“Oh, shut up,” I told her.

“I said nothing.”

“You sighed in cursive.”

Cora laughed.

Katerina placed a plate beside me. A warm piece of pastry. Orange blossom and butter.

“Eat, our Lena.”

I looked at her.

She had already turned away to shout at somebody in the kitchen.

I ate.

Mezza Notte smelled of new wood, old wine, and the faint trace of smoke that no amount of money could fully remove.

Tonio had refused to eradicate it.

One section of blackened brick remained behind a tall pane of glass near the main dining room. Fire had darkened the mortar and split one brick down the middle. A small brass plate beneath it carried the date of the attack.

We can’t ever outgrow trauma—it becomes part of us.

The rest of Mezza Notte looked brighter than before. Warm gold lights reflected in dark windows. New tables filled the room. The bar shone. Fresh paint covered the places where smoke had climbed the walls, but old photographs had gone back into their original positions.

Every displaced employee had returned.

The guard who had been shot at the legal suite had been invited too. He walked with a black cane now and became furious whenever somebody moved a chair for him.

“I have one bad leg,” he said loudly. “Not a fatal allergy to furniture.”

Sal greeted him with a hand on his shoulder. The guard looked at me.

For one second, the corridor came back. Smoke. Gunfire. His body hitting the wet carpet.

Then he smiled.

He raised his glass to me and moved on before I could thank him.

Filoxenia’s desserts filled a long table across the open doors between the two businesses. Honey gleamed beneath the lights. Powdered sugar dusted dark trays. The enormous cake stood in the center with my slightly uneven piping displayed where Donatella had failed to turn it toward the wall.

She claimed it added character.

Dinner spread across several joined tables. Dante sat with Gemma beside him. He kept one hand at the back of her chair while speaking to Santo across the table. Santo argued with Tonio about the correct way to prepare meat. Cora ate quietly beside him, occasionally adding one sentence that ended the argument more effectively than shouting.

Marco opened wine, and Serafina took it away from him.