Page 120 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
Enzo brushes my hand briefly, then follows Giovanni down the path.
I watch them go. Something in Giovanni's gait is too smooth. His timing is too precise. The way he turned up just as our conversation reached its sharpest point. I cannot name it. But it sits wrong.
And I've learned to trust when something sits wrong.
22
ARIA
Two weeks later, I am still adjusting to this life.
Daylight breaks over the estate in strokes of soft amber, the kind of golden hush that makes everything look more forgiving than it is.
Light pools in the corners of our new rooms like a benediction, as if trying to soften the edges of a life that no longer fits into clear definitions.
Luca keeps Enzo very busy.
He is hardly here with his family.
But I know what comes with choosing this life, and what time he has with his son and me makes me grateful.
Now that I am back, it is with the determination to make this family whole, as it should be.
If that means staying with the Salvatores for as long as Enzo needs to, so be it.
This morning, I move quietly through the kitchen, barefoot on cold tile, spreading butter on toast while Gabriel swings his feet under the small table, frowning into his cocoa.
"I don't like it here," he mutters, not looking up. "It smells like old people and soap."
I pause mid-slice, forcing a smile. "That means it's clean."
"It means it's not home."
His voice is careful in the way only children learn to speak when they've already lost too much.
I cross to him and crouch beside the chair, brushing his curls back from his forehead. "I know, baby. But it's only for a little while. We're safe now."
I don't tell him the truth—that the school forms still sit unfinished in the drawer, that I haven't yet figured out how to let him leave the estate grounds each morning when enemies might still be watching.
I don't tell him that I've spent the past two weeks waiting to breathe, too afraid the walls might turn on us before I could call it safe.
Instead, I just kiss the top of his head and hope he can't feel how much of me is still bracing for the worst.
He meets my eyes with the kind of solemn clarity that always undoes me. "Is this like the other places? Are we going to leave again?"
"No," I say, and it's not a lie. "We're going to find a school nearby. You'll make new friends. Maybe even have your own room again."
He pushes the cocoa away. "I already had friends. Landon and Leo. And we had the tree we used to climb."
I draw him close, hold him until his small body relaxes against mine, until his arms twine around my neck like they used to when he was smaller, less burdened. "You still have them. But now you have more. This is a beginning, not an end."
But I also feel the absence of what we built, the rhythm of our quiet routines now disrupted by the creak of new doors and the heaviness of unfamiliar footsteps echoing through old halls. He doesn't cry. He hasn't cried in a long time. That breaks me more than anything.
Later, when he's curled on the window seat reading the same page for the fourth time, I slip out.
Enzo is away on an assignment, so there's not much else to do except explore the estate.
The morning is cool, the sky soft with clouds, the olive trees whispering faintly overhead.
