Page 6 of The Marriage Debt

“Pause it,” I mutter. Rafe obeys, freezing the image. The grainy timestamp reads 08:13 A.M. Parents walking, kids laughing. Lev’s tiny form steps into frame, backpack swinging, completely unaware. My stomach tightens like a fist.

The SUV doesn’t move. No one gets out. It just sits there like a loaded gun waiting to go off.

I inhale slowly, hold it, let the rage curl down my spine like a snake uncoiling.

“They think we’re asleep,” I say finally, standing and buttoning my jacket. “They think Anton’s death left the boy exposed.”

Rafe’s jaw tics. “Bianchi move?”

“Maybe. Maybe just some low-level shithead testing the water.” I nod toward the screen. “Doesn’t matter. No more games.”

He waits. He knows what’s coming.

“I want two armed men at the school. Starting tomorrow. Inside. Outside. I don’t give a fuck. If anyone so much as steps out of line…” I turn to him, slow and cold. “They shoot to disable. Then shoot again to finish the job.”

Rafe doesn’t flinch. “Understood.”

“No calls to the police. No warning shots. We are not negotiating with people who watch children from tinted windows.”

He nods and pulls out his phone to start making arrangements. I already know the names he’ll call. Quiet men. Deadly ones.

There’s a knock at the door.

“Enter.”

Alessio steps in, always polite, always timely. In his hand is a thin leather folder. “She’ll be here by noon tomorrow,” he says. “The officiant has been secured. He’ll keep it quiet.”

“And the paperwork?”

He opens the folder, lays it in front of me like a contract with the devil. My name and Lila’s are printed in heavy type. It’s not legal yet, but it will be. Once the judge signs off tomorrow, there’s no going back.

I pick up the pen. My signature is nothing more than a formality now. We were never going to be free after this.

She’s smart. She’ll know this isn’t about her. She’ll hate me for it, but she’ll stay—for him.

I scribble my name across the bottom and close the folder.

“She doesn’t need to sign it in advance?”

“No. The judge will witness hers tomorrow.”

“Good.” I walk around the desk, roll my shoulders, glance back once more at the still frame of that SUV. “If I find out who was behind that car…”

I don’t finish the sentence. I don’t need to. Everyone in this room already knows. I’ll bury them so deep their bones won’t even whisper.

The terrace is slick with rain, the stone glistening under the low amber light. I lean against the edge, phone in hand, watching the street beyond the gates. It’s quiet now, but that SUV’s burned into my mind like a bad omen. I scroll back through the footage. Same model, same spot. No plates. Tinted windows.

Cowards love windows they can hide behind.

I exhale through my nose, jaw tight, and slide the phone into my pocket. The air smells like soil and wet pine. I can’t see the school from here, but I can feel the tension from it stretching all the way across the city, knotted up in my shoulders.

The boy is a target.

I turn from the edge, the gravel under my soles whispering as I walk back toward the double doors. I wipe my hand once on my slacks before gripping the brass handle and pushing inside.

Warmth hits immediately—low lighting, polished wood, quiet. The house tenses as I enter, trained as well as a soldier, and I see Lev.

He’s standing just inside, tucked beside the column near the stairs like he’s been waiting. I stop mid-step, wiping the rain from my shoulders, and he doesn’t move. Doesn’t say a word. Just stares at me, head slightly tilted, like I’m something he can’t quite make sense of yet.

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