Semua Bab My Runaway Mafia Groom Wants Me Back: Bab 71 - Bab 80

CaterinaAlessia’s last text is a knife in pretty handwriting.They pledged. Nonna made them kiss the ring. Don’t come back.I put the phone face down on the island. It still burns through the marble.Bruce is a shadow in the doorway, broad enough to be mistaken for architecture. “Phone,” he says, palm out.I slide it across. “I’m not going to run.”His mouth moves the smallest amount. “That’s not why I’m taking it.” He pockets the device, then taps the jamb as if testing a hinge. “Door stays locked tonight. You stay where I can see you.”“I’m not a flight risk.”“No,” he says, stepping in, “You’re a woman who thinks pain is a reason to move. I’m removing reasons.”It should irritate me. It steadies me instead. I lean my hip against the counter and stare at the espresso I’m not going to drink.“My father disowned me over text. He cited God and shipping routes in the same sentence. Poetry.”“Your cousin warned you,” he says.“She tried.” I inhale. It catches. “They’re going to make her

EmmelineThe kettle screams like it enjoys bad news.Caterina pads in wearing Bruce’s t-shirt like a stolen flag. I’m glad to see they’ve finally taken a step in the right direction. The princess and the bodyguard. It should be a serialized fiction.Before I can comment, the lights blink. A half-second hiccup that makes the pendants shiver and the thermostat forget its manners.Bruce’s head turns before mine. His hand goes to his radio, but the radio stays dumb. The intercom bleats once, a cheerful little ding-dong that has never, in the history of New York, meant anything but trouble.“Front door,” Caterina murmurs, eyes gone sharp.“No,” Bruce says, already moving. “Service stair.”He’s right. The camera feed on the small screen by the pantry shows a man in a gray maintenance uniform carrying a bucket with no weight in it. The lock indicator flashes green when it shouldn’t.“Manual cut,” I say. I press the panic toggle under the counter. The shades drop with a metal whisper. In the

CaterinaHe makes me meet him in a side chapel, as if God is a better witness than lawyers.The church is one of those narrow, old-world pockets squeezed between laundromats and a locksmith that never seems to be open.Candles gutter in red glass. Plaster saints pretend not to listen. Bruce stands at the door and becomes part of the architecture. Hands loose, eyes counting exits. He moves a little stiff from the knife that kissed him this morning, but he refused to let anyone else come with me.My father arrives on time because he believes punctuality is morality. Black coat, darker eyes, two men who look like they could be carved from the same block as the columns. He doesn’t sit. He fills space the way old money does, with silence and disapproval.“Papà,” I say.“Don’t,” he answers, and the word is clean as a blade. “You forfeited it.”He looks at Bruce, then past him, deciding whether the man at the door is furniture or weather. He chooses weather and faces me again. “You embarrass

Emmeline“Nonna Vescari won’t come for trucks and ledgers,” I say. “She comes for weaknesses. So I’ll give her one.”Asher’s eyes cut to me. “No.”“You don’t know what it is yet.”“It’s you,” he says, and there’s too much love in it to bear. “So no.”I pick up the tin of black wax they left like a calling card and turn it in my hand until it squeaks.“She thinks women are currency. Wives, daughters, cousins. She thinks we belong to the ledger’s notes. Let her think that and come close enough to learn math has changed.”I set the tin down.“We send a message through the channels she respects. Propriety and prayer. A condolence mass notice, bought by ‘a friend’ in my mother’s maiden name. A florist order. White lilies and a black ribbon delivered to Santa Maria del Gesù with an old-fashioned card. And a private note to her fixer that reads like a confession.”Asher’s jaw knots. “What confession?”“That I’m tired.” I meet his gaze. “That the crown you put on is crushing what’s under my r

AsherNew York welcomes us back with terrible weather and worse smells. As much as I want to go to Emmeline, I have to finish this.You don’t sleep between a war’s penultimate page and its last.We choose Pier 37 as our meeting place. Where they left Nico propped like a cautionary tale with a black-wax card on his lapel.Bruce stands at my shoulder. “You’re sure he’ll bite?”“He wants to be seen,” I say. “Newly minted heirs crave acknowledgment.”He arrives in a dark sedan. Three men with him. Two peel off too late when the first floodlight hits. My shooters own the angles. Lines of red dance across coats and make decisions for men who think they still have them.Luca Vescari steps out looking like a photograph of an uncle I never liked. Hair too careful, grief worn like cufflinks, a ring with the V pressed deep enough to make skin complain. He looks at the grey water, then at me, as if I should apologize for geography.“Asher Giordano,” he says, as if he’s naming a chess piece.I nod