Page 62 of The Mafia's Christmas Baby
His fingers keep tracing up and down my back, small, slow circles that pull me back into myself.
The sound of our breathing fills the room, soft and real.
I tip my head against his chest, listening to the steady thud under my ear.
For the first time in what feels like forever, I let myself be still.
He presses a kiss to the top of my hair, then another, slower, to my temple.
“You’re safe,” he says, and it lands somewhere deep, somewhere I didn’t know was still raw.
I don’t trust words like safe, but right now, I believe him anyway.
The dark doesn’t feel dangerous anymore.
It just feels full of breath, of heat, of us trying to remember how to come back down to earth.
12
NICO
Two days later, evening
I’m taking Elisa out tonight.
I pick her up at the side door of the bakery.
No lights.
Coat over her shoulders.
Hair pulled back.
I open the passenger door and keep the street in the corner of my eye.
We don't talk on the drive.
She watches the mirrors the way I do.
Good.
The trattoria sits on a narrow block behind a hardware store.
No sign. A single light in the entry and a buzzer you have to know about.
I press it.
The lock clicks.
Inside, the room is small and warm.
Red tile floor.
Old wood tables.
No music.
Only voices and plates.
