Page 75 of The Hitman's Secret Baby
The square is nestled between old stone buildings that lean like old friends into each other, their shutters painted in fading blues and greens.
Market stalls bloom like patchwork—striped awnings fluttering over crates of peaches, mounds of tomatoes so redthey border on decadent, wheels of cheese stacked beside baskets of wild thyme and flowering arugula.
Sunlight cuts across the square in thick golden slants, catching in the glass jars of honey and the curved necks of oil bottles.
Somewhere nearby, a woman is playing a wooden flute, the tune lilting and half-forgotten, threaded with the chatter of locals and the shuffle of sandaled feet.
Gabriel tugs my hand eagerly, pointing toward the olives, then the honeycombs, then the stall where a man is slicing prosciutto so thin it glows.
"Can we get the sweet kind again?" he asks, eyes wide. "With the little white seeds?"
I smile, already reaching into my coin purse. "You mean the figs?"
He nods furiously. "Yes. Figs. But only if they're squishy, not dry."
We walk slowly through the market, letting the rhythm of the morning settle into our bones.
I greet the vendors I've come to know by voice and smell rather than name: an old woman with hands like olive bark who always slips an extra plum into Gabriel's bag, a young couple who sell herbs from their rooftop garden and ask no questions when I pay in exact change.
I choose a loaf of sourdough with a blistered crust and a soft cow's cheese wrapped in lemon leaves.
I buy a tomato so ripe it gives under my thumb, its skin velvet-smooth.
And figs, of course. The squishy kind.
We settle on a low stone bench near the fountain, where the pigeons linger and children climb.
Gabriel peels the fig and grins at the stickiness of it, licking the syrup from his fingers and leaning his head against myshoulder while I slice the bread and cheese into a makeshift picnic.
For a few moments, the world feels whole. I let myself pretend that this is all there ever was; sun, figs, my son beside me, and the miracle of a life reclaimed.
But peace, I've learned, is not a thing you get to keep. Not when you are born from blood.
It starts as a flicker in the periphery.
A shadow behind movement.
Then, there is the brief, unmistakable shift of posture that sets every muscle in my body on edge.
I freeze, the knife halfway through a second slice, and my gaze slides carefully, naturally, toward the opposite side of the market.
A man. Broad shoulders, gray jacket, and the cut far too clean for this village.
He stands by the wine vendor, browsing bottles he has no interest in, his eyes masked behind dark glasses, but I know that body.
I know the shape of that jaw.
The line of his shoulders.
I have seen him before, with Enzo.
No matter how many times I blink, that part won't change.
My mind isn't making him up.
I swallow once, and force my hands to keep moving. Bread. Cheese. Another fig, split open.
I laugh softly at something Gabriel says, the sound forced through clenched teeth.
