Page 40 of Blood Orange Christmas
Marco’s palm settles flat on my chest like a seal. “Papa,” he mumbles, already falling. “Don’t go.”
“I’m not going anywhere,” I tell him, and my mouth finally knows how to make it true.
17
DANTE
Idon’t put Marco down until his breathing evens and the small weight of him goes from alarm to sleep. Serena keeps a hand on my wrist while I hold him, not to stop me, just to keep the promise warm. Pippo presses his whole body against my shin like he thinks he’s a wall. The house listens. It knows when to keep its mouth shut.
I carry my son through the library so he can see the fire with his eyes half-open and believe the world stayed lit for him on purpose. He makes a little sound and tucks his hand under my collar like he owns the spot now. I kiss his hair and taste wool and soap and the outside. I don’t cry again. I just breathe like the lesson landed.
“Bed,” Serena says softly, thumb brushing my throat like she’s checking whether it works.
“Bed,” I echo and walk the corridor that’s learned our footfalls. Gabriella opens Serena’s door before I touch the latch. The small room smells like cedar and flour and a boy’s sleep. The comicsare still on the chair, heroes mid-punch, sound effects frozen in their best shapes.
I set Marco down and untangle the scarf from his neck the way you lift anchovy bones—quick, sure, careful of the meat that matters. He grabs the stuffed elephant without waking and tucks it under his chin like he practiced this afternoon for this exact job. I pull the blanket up, not too tight. Serena leans and kisses his temple. Her mouth touches the spot I just kissed, and the two gestures click together like parts of a lock.
“Stay,” Marco murmurs to nobody and all of us.
“We are,” I tell him, low and true, and turn the lamp to a glow that forgives.
Serena follows me out and closes the door with that cook’s touch that can set a pot lid down without making it sing. In the hall, she stops me with her palm on my chest. We stand there in the quiet air like we’re caught, and maybe we are.
“You did not promise light,” she says, eyes steady. “You promised locks.”
“You have both,” I say, and I mean it more than I meant anything this year. “And a dog who thinks he’s a hinge.”
She almost smiles. “Go do your part,” she says and hands me back to the war.
By dusk the next day, the villa changes its coat.
The villa is not quiet. It only sounds that way when you’re not trained to hear it. The Moretti cars hum at the gate, low and expensive, letting the hills know who they think they are. Corsi’s driver coughs the way old engines do when they don’t belong to old men. The Orvieto pair who pretend to be wine and are reallyroutes arrive in a rental that is too clean to be honest. Other names slide in under big ones like minnows under a boat—small men with too many favors, two boys with cufflinks and unspent courage, a woman from Naples who never wastes a step and knows exactly how many knives live in my kitchen.
They’re not here for a party. Not really. This is the Christmas Eve supper that passes for truce in our world—the old families and the headline chasers, the logistics boys and the saints of habit, all pretending to bless the season with fish and wine while we count each other’s soldiers by how many coats hang in the corridor. We call it peace because the churches are open late and the city likes stories that make it sleep.
Rosa is recovering in the infirmary. She’ll be fine. A report tells me it was a sedative and not poison. But my mind refuses to accept any form of rest. I step into the study that works as my airlock between honesty and everything else. Harrison is there before I am. He always is when the house needs a spine. His ledger is open on the desk, clean columns like pews. There’s a stain on the edge where a bottle shouldn’t have been. I know what it says without looking.Dinner is the weapon. Tonight, I intend to be the man holding it by the handle.
“Perimeter,” I say.
“Outer ring doubled,” he answers. “Two plainclothes at the chapel, one in the choir loft who can shoot quietly. Ridge is posted. West road is Luca’s. North wall walks every seven. South path looks sleepy. Rocco wants it angry.”
“Make it angry,” I say. “No more polite edges.”
He nods once. “Paolo?”
“Not here,” I tell him, and my jaw grinds once on the name I used to say with my feet up. “Last ping was the quarry. They took him off the road and left me bait. Then they got greedy and came for mine. That’s over.”
Camilla ghosts in with two clear bags and eyes that already know the next three problems. “Guests at the arch. The cousins send regards and an aunt. Rinaldi sent flowers and a note that smells like someone else wrote it. The magistrate’s nephew is ‘lost’ and expects the kitchen to be patient.”
“Lose him again,” I say. “In a room with water.”
“And the cellar?” she asks, too evenly.
“Closed,” I say. “Sealed. If a bottle needs to breathe, it can do it in a church.”
She almost smiles and hands me the new phone. “This line is clean. Two taps for me, three for Rocco. If you feel one long buzz, it’s the ridge. If you feel nothing, it’s worse.”
“Understood,” I say. “Bring them in. Feed them respect and bait.”
