Page 5

Chapter Four

Francesca

T he kettle clicks off, but I don’t move.

Steam coils in the silence like a whisper I’m not supposed to hear, curling around the edges of the calm I’ve built brick by brick over the last few days. A calm that feels less like peace and more like a waiting room for something I can’t name.

I finally pour the water into the mug, watching it darken the chamomile tea bag and hoping it will smother some of my guilt and let me sleep .

I hear soft footsteps on the marble floor. Lucia, not Alessio. He stomps. She floats.

"Couldn’t sleep?" I ask without turning.

Her voice is small. “Will you braid my hair?”

I glance down at her, the mug still in my hand. Her eyes are red-rimmed but dry, the kind of tired that doesn’t come from staying up too late but from holding something in too long.

"Of course, sweetheart." I set the mug on the counter and pat the stool in front of me.

She climbs up, legs swinging, and I run the brush gently through her hair. It's soft, the way expensive things always are, but it still tangles like a child’s should. There’s something grounding in the way she leans into me, trusting, warm.

“She used to do this,” Lucia says, almost a whisper. “Mama. Before she joined the fairies.”

I pause, my fingers tight around a lock of hair. “I’m sure she did it beautifully.”

“She did.” Lucia nods. “But you don’t pull. You’re more careful.”

My throat tightens. I focus on parting the strands evenly. This isn't why I’m here. This isn’t why I took this job. But the longer I stay, the more it feels like this is what I’m protecting, not some distant vendetta.

A floorboard creaks behind us.

I turn my head and find Dante watching from the doorway, his tie undone and shirt sleeves rolled up. Shadowed. Quiet.

He doesn’t speak. Just watches me finish the braid and tie it off with a soft pink elastic.

Lucia hops down. “Grazie. Goodnight, Alice.”

“Goodnight, my brave girl.”

She vanishes down the hall.

I stand slowly, aware of how close he still is. “She gets nightmares often,” I say, reaching for the tea mug.

“She’s always been sensitive.”

“And Alessio?”

“He pretends not to be. But yes.” He pauses. “You’re good with them.”

I shrug, uncomfortable under the weight of his gaze. “They’re easy to love.”

“You say that like it’s a surprise.”

I look at him then. Really look. There’s no cruelty in his expression tonight. Just exhaustion. Something else, too, something I don’t dare name.

I try to deflect. “I’m just doing my job.”

“No.” His voice is quiet. “You’re doing more.” He moves toward me, slow and measured. I don’t back away, but I don’t breathe either.

“I haven’t heard Lucia laugh like that in months,” he says. “Whatever you're doing—keep doing it.”

I want to ask, why me? Why trust me? Why let a stranger into this gilded, grieving cage?

But I don’t because part of me doesn’t want the answer.

Instead, I nod, and when I finally walk past him, I feel the air change. His presence still clings to me long after I’m gone.

I don’t go to bed.

Instead, I curl up on the sofa in the den, the tea cooling in my hands, untouched. The house is too quiet, but not the peaceful kind. It’s the kind of silence that hums with what’s unsaid. With what’s changing.

The door creaks open sometime later. I glance up, expecting Lucia. It’s him again.

“Are you following me, Mr. Forzi?” I ask as a joke, but he doesn’t speak. Just walks over and sits across from me on the other couch. There’s a looseness to him I’ve never seen before.

“I thought you’d gone to bed,” he says.

I nod. “I wanted to, but I like sitting here with all the books.”

We sit in silence. I’m aware of the ticking clock and the way the lamp throws soft gold shadows on the walls. A world removed from the one that brought me here.

He rubs the back of his neck. “They asked me to play pirates today.”

I blink. “You?”

“I was supposed to be the treasure.”

A laugh escapes before I can catch it. His mouth twitches like he wants to smile but doesn’t remember how.

“Supposed?”

“I didn’t have the time to play. I wanted to but…” He shrugs.

“Ah,” What can I say? I’m not supposed to know he’s mafia, that his responsibilities toward this world will always come before his family. At least he seems conflicted about it which is far more than what I can say about my own father.

“I don’t know how…” The vulnerability in his voice takes me off guard .

“How to what?”

“Play with them. Be a child.” He gives me a sad smile. “I don’t think I knew even when I was their age.”

“It’s not difficult. Children don’t expect you to be perfect, they just want to care. Don’t tell me you don’t pretend daily.”

“Not much.” He arches an eyebrow. “Tell me, Nanny Alice, are you pretending?”

“Not particularly,” I lie, my voice light, the lie heavier.

He doesn’t call me on it. Just watches me over the rim of his mug, something unreadable flickering behind those dark eyes. If he knows more than he lets on, he keeps it to himself.

The silence that stretches between us is different now, charged but not uncomfortable. Like two people who’ve accidentally found themselves standing in the same place too long and don’t quite know what to do about it.

He shifts back, settling into the couch like the weight of the day is finally winning. “Lucia likes you.”

“I like her too.”

“And Alessio?”

“Even when he’s threatening to drown people,” I tease.

That almost smile comes again. It doesn’t reach his eyes, but it tries. That counts for something.

“I don’t trust easily,” he says suddenly, his voice low. “But I believe what I see. They’re happier with you here.”

I don’t know how to respond. So I don’t. I just sit there, breathing in the quiet and feeling it settle into the cracks I didn’t know were forming.

Eventually, he stands .

“Goodnight, Alice.”

Somehow, having him call me Alice and not Nanny Alice feels intimate, and I can’t help but shiver at the tone of his voice.

The next day, we’re in the sunroom conducting our tenth mission to save the kingdom from the evil kraken when Dante enters the room.

He doesn’t speak right away, just stands near the doorway in his pressed slacks and crisp white shirt, sleeves rolled, tie gone. The light catches the faint shadow of stubble on his jaw and the uncertainty in his eyes—something I never thought I’d see on a man like him.

Lucia sees him first. “Papa!”

He gives a stiff nod. “Morning.”

Alessio squints at him like he’s evaluating a new recruit. “You can’t just barge into the middle of a mission.”

I see it, the flicker in Dante’s eyes. He wants to be involved. So I smile, lifting my chin.

“Oh, good,” I say, playing along. “We have a new mate.”

His brows lift. “I’m a mate?”

“Well,” I say with exaggerated seriousness, “Alessio is the Captain. I’m First Mate. So it’s this or... powder monkey.”

He blinks. “I don’t know what that is, but it sounds insulting.

Lucia stands, wand in hand, a crown askew on her curls. “I’m the Sea Goddess, obviously. ”

“Ah. Of course,” Dante says slowly, glancing around the room strewn with blankets, stuffed sea creatures, and one very aggressive glitter cannon fashioned from a toilet paper roll. He steps closer but stays near the edge of the chaos, clearly unsure where, or how, to begin.

“You can be the cartographer,” Alessio offers after a beat. “That means you draw the maps.”

“I know what it means,” Dante says, then hesitates. “But I... don’t draw.”

“Papa,” Lucia sighs. “You don’t have to actually draw. Just pretend.”

His lips twitch, like he might smile. He lowers himself to one knee, wincing slightly. “What does a cartographer do during a kraken attack?”

I hand him a plastic compass. “Mostly panic.”

He takes it gingerly, like it might explode. “I see.”

For a while, he stays awkwardly at the edge, watching as I twirl Lucia into a magical sea portal and Alessio bravely throws cushions at an imaginary enemy.

But then, slowly, he tries—holding up the compass, drawing invisible lines on the hardwood floor, narrating in a deep, serious tone about the treacherous waters of the carpet reef.

Lucia giggles. Alessio rolls his eyes but lets him stay.

I can see how much effort it takes him to play. It doesn’t come naturally. But he wants to try for them. That’s what gets me.

When the kraken is defeated and peace restored to the sunroom kingdom, the kids turn their attention to building a pillow fort. I sink down beside Dante, sitting cross-legged on the floor, my hand still sticky from a glitter potion spill .

He glances at me sideways. “How did I do?”

“Well,” I murmur, “you survived a glitter storm, got knighted by a sea goddess, and didn’t complain once about the plastic crown. I’d say you did well.”

He exhales a breath of dry laughter. “I feel like I’ve been through battle.”

I bump my shoulder lightly against his. “Welcome to Tuesday.”

Lucia climbs into his lap, all soft limbs and cotton dress, and whispers something in his ear that makes his eyes close briefly like her words physically moved something in him. Alessio leans against his other side, a knight at rest, chewing on a fruit snack.

And I watch them. I watch how they lean on him. How he lets them. Not because it comes easy but because he wants to.

And for a moment, I pretend this instant is real, except it isn’t. Not really.

Because no matter how warm this house feels, how close I sit to him now, I can’t let myself forget why I came.

I was promised my freedom.

If I give the Vescari enough to destroy Dante Forzi’s empire, I walk away. No more aliases. No more debts. No more bloodstained loyalty to a father who only sees me as leverage.

Just… gone. Free. Clean. I tell myself that’s still what I want.

Even as Alessio laughs and Lucia wraps her arms around my waist like I belong here.

Even as Dante glances at me like he sees something that matters.

I can’t afford to forget who I am.

But for the first time, I’m afraid of who I’ll become if I do what I promised.