Page 115 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
The lack of servants.
The fact that the sheets are freshly washed, but the drawers are empty.
Gabriel tugs at her hand. "Is this ours now?"
She crouches to his height, brushes a curl from his forehead. "It is for now."
He nods, clearly trying to be brave, but his eyes flick to me like he's still not sure what to make of the man who both terrifies and fascinates him.
I kneel beside them, placing a hand on the boy's shoulder.
"There is food in the fridge. Bread. Fruit. Cheese. If you are hungry, now is the time."
He looks up at his mother. Aria nods, and within moments, he disappears down the hallway, his footsteps light, muffled by the rug. She remains crouched, her arms on her knees, watching after him.
"He will be safe here," I say.
"Until he isn't," she points out.
I do not argue. Her voice is quiet, but the words are not meant to provoke. They are simple truth.
She stands and walks into the kitchen.
I follow, leaning against the doorframe as she opens the refrigerator and pulls out a tray.
Lasagna, dense with meat and cheese, the kind of food that comforts more than it nourishes.
She reheats a small plate, pours Gabriel a glass of milk, and sets it all down on the low kitchen table just as he returns, arms now filled with a plush dinosaur he had refused to leave behind.
I stay back while she feeds him. Her presence wraps around him like armor, every motion practiced and precise.
She doesn't hover, but she watches every bite, every flicker of his expression, and I realize that in these five years apart, she has not simply survived.
She has mothered. Fiercely. Quietly. Relentlessly.
Gabriel eats slowly. When he finishes, she wipes his mouth, carries his plate to the sink, and speaks softly to him about brushing his teeth, about choosing a room, about the soft pajamas folded in the suitcase at her feet.
When she walks him to the far bedroom, I wait in the hall. I hear her voice through the open door, low and rhythmic as she tells him some story I cannot make out. It sounds like water. Like peace I do not deserve to invade.
Ten minutes later, she returns. Her eyes are tired. Her body is thinner than I remember.
But her mouth is set in a line I know too well.
I say nothing for a moment. I let the silence grow, let it fill the distance between us the way salt fills the sea.
Then, quietly, I speak. "He is a good boy."
"He is your son."
I nod. "He will not want for anything."
Her gaze flicks up to meet mine. "Except truth. Except freedom. Except maybe the right to live a life where no one ever asks him to bleed for a name."
I take the words like a punch, not because they're cruel, but because they are clean. Honest. And it is a rarity in this house.
"You will be watched," I say. "Luca may have allowed this, but he has not accepted it. You are not welcome yet. You are tolerated. The difference is vast."
She folds her arms. "And you? Do you still love me, or do you merely tolerate me now?"
