Page 122 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
Eventually, Valentina lifts her gaze to the window.
I look in the same direction to see Giovanni getting inside a limo. A snort leaves me before I can stop myself.
Valentina chooses not to comment at first, but smiles— a wry, acerbic little tilt of her lips—moments later. "You still don't trust him, do you? Giovanni."
I shrug and fiddle with a loose thread on my sleeve. "He presses all the wrong nerves."
She hums faintly. "He's clever. Smarter than he lets on. That's his gift and his flaw. He's leaving for Florence right now. Visiting family, returning in two days."
Her face is unreadable as she delivers this information to me, but somehow, I think she's handing me a key, if I can use it right.
I keep my face still.
But the intel clicks into place so cleanly I feel my breath leave my lungs.
Valentina doesn't seem to notice.
Or maybe she does, and chooses not to comment.
"Does Luca know you tell me these things?"
"Luca knows many things. He also forgets what it means to be underestimated."
I rise, thanking her with a touch to her shoulder.
She squeezes my hand once, and I see it in her eyes—this world may eat its daughters, but not without a fight.
When I return to the south house, Gabriel is asleep again, curled around his lion.
The light from the hall seeps into his room in a thin line, enough to show me that he is breathing deeply, the tension finally unraveled from his small shoulders.
I brush his hair back once, gently, and close the door with the kind of silence only mothers learn to manage.
Before I go, I write a quick note on the chalkboard near the kitchen. A promise. "I will look into your school tomorrow. We'll find one with books and lunchboxes and art class. You'll be okay."
The words feel like a shield. A hope that he can read in the morning if he wakes before me.
Everything about this place feels engineered for silence that listens.
It's the kind of hush that records who walks where and when.
I move carefully through the corridors, barefoot, the soles of my feet brushing against the polished stone that once terrified me as a child.
Now, it just feels cold.
Familiar.
It's a place built for secrets.
Giovanni's room is on the upper floor, a detail I pick up during a quiet exchange with the kitchen cook, who seems far more in need of a friend than a recipe.
It is near the guest wing no one uses but everyone watches. I take the stairs slowly, counting the steps in my head, letting my body memorize the rhythm like a dance I cannot afford to forget.
The hall beyond the second landing curves inward, like the estate's spine, and the carpet grows thicker, swallowing my steps. I find his door.
The handle is polished brass.
The lock, subtle.
