Chapter 4 - The House Behind the Gates
I should have walked away.
Every instinct I had told me to take Maya, find my cousin Sofia, and disappear into Rome before Luca Moretti turned my problems into something worse.
But Sofia’s apartment was in a crowded neighborhood with one broken lock and windows that faced the street.
Richard knew my cousin’s name.
He knew too much.
So when Luca offered a secure guesthouse for “forty-eight hours only,” I said yes.
The guesthouse was not a guesthouse.
It was a villa hidden behind iron gates outside the city, with olive trees, marble floors, armed security, and more rooms than Maya had years of life.
She stood in the doorway of our bedroom, holding her stuffed rabbit.
“Are we princesses now?” she asked.
“No, sweetheart.”
“Then why do we have a bathroom bigger than our old kitchen?”
I laughed despite myself.
The sound felt strange. Rusty.
Luca’s housekeeper, Elena, brought Maya pasta with tomato sauce and little pieces of bread. Maya devoured it, then fell asleep in a bed covered in white linen.
I sat beside her until her breathing deepened.
Only then did I allow myself to cry.
Quietly.
Carefully.
Like I had learned to do during the last year with Richard.
When I left the room, Luca was standing in the hallway.
He had changed from his travel clothes into a dark shirt and trousers. Without the suit, he looked less like a businessman and more like the kind of man who could own a country if he decided to.
“You heard me,” I said.
“Yes.”
“I’m fine.”
“No, you’re not.”
I glared at him. “You don’t get to decide that.”
“You’re right.”
The answer caught me off guard.
He nodded toward the study. “Dante found preliminary information.”
I followed him.
A file lay open on the desk.
Richard Bennett.
Real estate developer. No major criminal record. Several sealed civil complaints. Two former employees who had accepted private settlements. A pattern of intimidation, threats, and legal pressure.
My stomach turned.
“He’s not supposed to be here,” I said. “He was in Chicago.”
“He landed in Rome six hours ago.”
The room tilted.
“He followed us.”
“Yes.”
I gripped the edge of the desk.
Luca’s voice softened. “You don’t have to handle this alone.”
“I always handled it alone.”
“Not anymore.”
I looked at him sharply. “Why?”
He paused.
Then Theodore began crying from upstairs.
Luca went still.
“I need to get him,” he said, but he didn’t move immediately.
“You’re afraid,” I said.
His expression hardened. “Of what?”
“Of failing him.”
The silence answered for him.
I walked upstairs with him.
Theodore was awake in his crib, his cries building. Luca lifted him awkwardly, pacing with tense shoulders.
“His mother died during childbirth,” Luca said suddenly. “Complications. One minute she was speaking to me. The next minute doctors were telling me she was gone.”
“I’m sorry.”
“I had built companies in twelve countries. I had negotiated with governments. I had survived things no one knows about.” He looked down at Theodore. “Then I had a son, and I couldn’t even make him stop crying.”
“You don’t have to be perfect,” I told him. “You just have to be present.”
Theodore reached for me.
Luca noticed.
I did too.
And before either of us spoke, a loud crash shattered the quiet downstairs.
Dante’s voice thundered through the hall.
“Mr. Moretti!”
Luca turned.
“What?”
Dante appeared at the top of the stairs, his face grim.
“We have a problem.”
“What kind of problem?”
Dante looked directly at me.
May you like
“Richard Bennett is at the front gate.”
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