Page 43 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
And if I don't, I'm damned anyway.
I'll have to run, have to find a way to make ends meet without the luxuries of the world I've been born into.
6
ARIA
The grand living room of the Salvatore estate feels colder by the hour.
I sit in silence, spine straight against the velvet upholstery of a gilt-trimmed chair, watching the sunlight stretch across the marble floors and fade into shadow.
At first, I imagine Enzo will return soon.
That he has been pulled away briefly, as men like him often are, by duty or danger. But as the hours pass, the stillness around me begins to feel deliberate.
Like a curtain slowly drawing between us.
Eventually, I stop pretending I am simply waiting.
I am lingering.
My phone rests on the armrest beside me, buzzing faintly every few minutes.
The screen lights up with missed calls.
Four from Luciana.
Two from Mama.
One more from Papa.
Another follows seconds later, his name appearing like a flare in the dark.
I don't answer it.
I can't—not yet.
I know exactly what that call will contain.
Not words.
Not questions.
Just rage, wrapped in silence too sharp to soothe.
I rise and slip out of the room with the grace expected of a Lombardi daughter.
I move like someone with a purpose, even if I no longer know what it is.
The corridors of the Salvatore estate stretch out before me like veins of stone and shadow, cold and endless.
I descend the staircase without thought, past staff who do not meet my eyes, past portraits of men with the same calculating gaze as Enzo, down into the shaded interior courtyards where fountains murmur secrets and citrus trees bloom in polished urns.
The garden paths are warmer, touched by the fading gold of late afternoon.
I follow them without direction, the gravel crunching beneath my heels.
The hedges rise around me in perfect symmetry, walls of green that hide and shelter in equal measure.
