Page 46 of The Marriage Debt

The car’s already waiting at the gate. Alessio’s behind the wheel. He doesn’t speak. He just checks the rearview mirror, puts the vehicle into gear, and drives. The engine hums low, smooth. No one plays music on these rides. There’s no need to fill the silence. It’s not meant to be comfortable.

We take the back roads and pass through a checkpoint I built three years ago, before the city expanded and swallowed it whole. The guards on duty open the gate without stopping us. They know my car's plate.

By the time we reach the estate, the sun’s low and the sky’s darkening fast. Light bleeds over the trees in amber streaks. I step out without a word and walk toward the house.

Inside, the house smells like Lila's perfume. The feminine aroma makes the place feel different, like home.

I find Lev in my office. He’s small at the desk, perched in the chair I rarely let anyone else sit in, one knee pulled up under his chest, the other swinging lazily as he flips through one of the ledgers I left out this morning. His fingers skim the edges of the pages like he’s looking for something. There’s a stack of colored pencils beside him. He hasn’t used them.

He looks up when I enter. “You didn’t lock the drawer,” he says. “So I thought maybe I could look at your number pad.”

“You can look.”

I close the door behind me and lean against the frame. The boy’s sharper than most adults I’ve worked with. He doesn’t waste energy on what he can’t control. He flips the page, stops at one with a red-marked column and two underlined names.

“Are those the bad guys?” His finger taps on the names written there, one of them belonging to the man Rafe is cleaning up right now.

“Some of them.”

“What do you do to them?”

I cross the room slowly, reach for the ledger, and close it before he can turn another page. “I take care of it.” I know he reads. He doesn't need to see that so young.

Lev nods once. “Okay.”

He doesn’t ask what that means, doesn’t push, just accepts the answer like it’s the most natural thing in the world. Most kids would be bored with red ink in ledgers. Lev traces it with the tip of his finger, calm as breath, no fear, just curiosity.

He’s five, and he already understands the value of silence. This house feels different when he’s in it. Not softer—just clearer. Like there’s something left worth preserving.

I reach over, ruffle his curls, and watch him settle back into the chair.

He belongs here more than I ever did.

23

LILA

The chair they give me is too close to the front. I can hear the scratch of Serafina’s pen against her notepad every time she wants to look important. The table is low and narrow, my knees barely fitting underneath. I sit with both hands in my lap, fingers clenched to keep them still. Across the aisle, Marcella doesn’t look at me. She folds her hands neatly on the polished wood surface, spine straight, mouth tight. The skin beneath her eyes looks bruised from lack of sleep, but she’s wearing enough powder to hide it.

The mediator clears her throat and flips the top page of her file. Her voice is even when she begins the hearing, but she doesn’t make eye contact with me. Not once. "Thank you all for coming. Today we will hear the case against Mrs. Lila Varo-Rossi." She turns to Marcella. "You may speak.”

Marcella starts calmly. Her voice is pleasant, practiced. "Thank you, your honor, for hearing the emergency motion," she says and then launches straight into the evidence submission. No build-up or context, just a line of footage timestamped between 1:58 and 2:11 a.m., spread across four separate nights. The camera is hidden in Mateo's house. It doesn't look like one of his security camera angles, either. The angle is poor, grainy, but the image is clear enough.

It’s me, stepping into Mateo’s room in the middle of the night. What the context is leaving out is that I slept there the whole night every night. I was merely returning to his room after checking on Lev when I woke. I'm angry, but what can I do?

Marcella still doesn’t look at me. She clicks her pen, lays her hand flat over the page, and says it directly. “This is not a marriage built on stability. This is a pattern of behavior, coordinated, covert, and inappropriate, submitted as proof that the child’s guardian is leveraging an adult relationship—one without legal merit—to circumvent prior custody claims.”

"That's not true," I hiss, and Mateo's solicitor presses a hand to my shoulder to calm me. He shakes his head, pursing his lips. It's like he wants me to take this lying down. It's like he and Mateo planned this humiliation.

The words hit like they’ve been sharpened in advance. I feel them in my chest, under my ribs, deeper than I expected. They say I’m faking the marriage. They say I’m manipulating my position. They say I’m lying to keep Lev from the only people who have ever been consistent in his life. At least, that’s the story they’re selling.

"Can I speak?" I ask, but the solicitor scowls at me.

"My client is emotional, your honor. You understand." Seated beside me, his eyes move carefully between the mediator and the opposing table. The file in front of him is thin. We weren’t given advance notice of what they’d submit. They called it sealed, protective, urgent.

Mother keeps her chin raised the entire time, as if the accusation isn’t enough—like she needs to see it wound me. Marcella blinks but doesn’t speak.

When the mediator finally speaks, she doesn’t smile. “This isn’t a ruling. But based on the materials submitted and the sudden nature of this request, we are approving temporary observational oversight. An external agency will be assigned to assess the current living conditions of the child. If necessary, a follow-up custody hearing will be scheduled pending their findings.”

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