Chapter 8 - A KISS BEHIND LOCKED DOORS
Victoria's call lasted seventeen seconds. She didn't confess to anything. She didn't have to. She told me Marisol would never be safe while I kept telling stories, then disconnected. Naomi preserved the recording and forwarded it to investigators. Damiano wanted to confront Victoria. I told him that the one thing she wanted most was proof she could still control his reactions.
"Don't give her that," I said.
He paced the hotel living room. "She threatened my daughter."
"Then be her father. Stay here. Let the people collecting evidence do their jobs."
He stopped. For a moment I thought he would argue. Instead, he went into the nursery and sat beside the crib.
The next several days were quieter in ways that felt unnatural. Reporters gathered outside the hotel. Business partners called. Damiano spent hours with attorneys reviewing contracts he'd once signed without a second thought. I returned to work only long enough to collect my personal belongings. Mrs. Alvarez helped me pack, then announced that she was retiring from household management to become Marisol's unofficial grandmother. Damiano offered to keep paying her. She said she'd consider it if he learned how to make his own coffee.
One evening, after Marisol finally settled, I found Damiano in the kitchenette studying instructions on a formula container. He had measured everything correctly, but his expression suggested he was defusing a bomb.
"She's breastfed," I reminded him. "That's backup for later."
"I'm preparing for every possibility."
"You can't prepare for every possibility."
"That's becoming painfully clear."
I laughed. It surprised both of us. For weeks every conversation had involved threats, evidence, or loss. Suddenly we were two exhausted adults standing beside a bottle warmer while a baby slept in the next room.
Damiano made tea. We talked about ordinary things: the worst meals we'd ever eaten, the first jobs we'd held, the songs Isabella used to play in the car. I learned that he hated olives, collected terrible detective novels, and once wanted to be an architect. He learned that I dreamed of opening a childcare center for parents who worked unpredictable hours. Isabella and I had planned it before the pregnancy changed everything.
"Why didn't you?" he asked.
"Money. Then fear. Then Marisol."
"You should still do it."
"I don't need you to buy me a future."
"I wasn't offering to buy it. I was saying you should have one."
The distinction mattered. So did the way he looked at me when I spoke, as though my answer might change his understanding of the world.
The following morning, we attempted a trip to the little courtyard behind the hotel. The security team checked it first, which made the simple act of getting fresh air feel absurdly complicated. But Marisol seemed pleased by the new surroundings. She blinked at the pale winter sun and fell asleep before we'd completed a single lap around the fountain.
Damiano pushed the stroller at the careful speed of a man transporting glass sculptures over a broken road. Whenever one wheel hit a seam in the pavement, he stopped to inspect the baby. Finally I took the handle from him and demonstrated how to turn a corner without looking as though we were crossing a minefield. He accepted the lesson with a solemn nod that made me laugh again.
"Isabella would love this," I said before I could stop myself.
The laughter vanished. I glanced at him, expecting hurt, embarrassment, or that terrible politeness people adopt when someone mentions the dead. He looked at Marisol instead.
"She'd have photographed me and sent it to everyone she knew," he said.
We walked quietly for a while. I told him about the time my sister had spent an entire month's savings on a used camera because she didn't want our childhood to exist only in memories. Damiano told me she'd once persuaded him to eat hot dogs from a street cart while wearing an absurdly expensive suit. There had been mustard on his sleeve during an important meeting, and Isabella had considered it an artistic triumph.
The stories didn't make our growing attraction simple. If anything, they reminded me how complicated it was. He had loved her. I had loved her. We were both standing beside her daughter, grateful and grieving and sometimes lonely for reasons neither of us could explain. When Damiano handed me the stroller at the doorway, he didn't reach for my hand. I was grateful that he understood affection could be real without being rushed. On our way back to the suite, I told him I was frightened of what I might feel for him. He listened rather than trying to talk me out of it.
Later, the hotel fire alarm sounded. It turned out to be a kitchen accident two floors below, but the noise sent me into a panic. I grabbed Marisol's emergency bag and stood frozen at the door. Damiano approached slowly and asked before touching my shoulder. We evacuated with the other guests. Outside, while firefighters cleared the building, I began shaking uncontrollably.
"You're safe," he said.
"I know. My body doesn't."
He stood beside me without trying to fix it. When the all-clear came, we returned upstairs. I couldn't sleep. Neither could he.
We sat in the living room with the door open to Marisol's bedroom. I told him about the years Isabella and I spent surviving on secondhand furniture and stubborn hope. He told me how often he'd confused control with care. At some point he reached for my hand. I let him take it.
"Elina," he said, "I need to tell you something before it becomes another secret."
My heart began to race. "What?"
"I think about you when you're not in the room. I want to know whether you've eaten. Whether you slept. Whether you had one hour today that belonged to you."
"That sounds suspiciously domestic for a terrifying mafia boss."
His smile was brief and genuine. "I'm trying something new."
I looked at him, this complicated man who had loved my sister and was learning to be a father. Wanting him frightened me. So did the thought of denying what had begun to grow between us.
"We can't rush this," I whispered. "Not with Isabella's memory between us. Not with Marisol depending on us."
"Then we won't."
May you like
He leaned closer, giving me every chance to move away. I closed the distance myself. The kiss was gentle, almost questioning. It ended quickly, and neither of us pretended it had solved anything. But when I pulled back, I wasn't afraid of him.
The next morning, Naomi arrived with a new complication. A court filing alleged that I had kidnapped Marisol and was using Damiano to extort the Bellini family. The petitioner was not Victoria. It was Carlo Rossi, claiming he had been appointed guardian by a document Isabella supposedly signed before her death.
