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STEFI

S ince I found out that Joao was alive, anytime I let myself dream about living in Venice with him, Antonio Moretti’s financial support of Henrik Bach was always the thing that stopped me cold. It was always the biggest impediment to our happiness.

Turns out Venice’s fearsome padrino isn’t the biggest hurdle. It’s Joao’s friends. They do not like me, a thing that becomes rapidly clear over the next few days.

Dinner invitations arrive addressed to Joao, not to me. He turns every single one down. He also skips his weekly poker games, insisting he can’t possibly leave me, but I know the real reason. It’s because I’m not welcome.

Charlie arrives in Venice a week after our conversation and gets immediately integrated into the social circle. There are a handful of young girls her own age—Francesca, Dina, and Lavinia—and she’s immediately and warmly invited into their ranks. She doesn’t speak any Italian, but they seem to get along just fine anyway, with makeup tutorials on TikTok serving as their shared language.

Me though? I’m being frozen out.

For two weeks, I try to pretend it isn’t happening, but when Matteo gives me the okay to go outside in carefully controlled doses, I can’t put it off any longer. I’ve been letting my recovery serve as an excuse, but the truth is, I need to talk to Alina. It doesn’t matter if she gives me the cold shoulder. The apology I owe her is long, long overdue.

Joao’s been working from home during my convalescence, but he finally returns to work one overcast Monday morning, three weeks after I arrived in Venice.

“Are you sure you can manage?” he asks me as he gets dressed. “Our headquarters is less than a ten-minute walk from here. I’ll be back for lunch, but if you need me before that?—”

“I’ll be fine.”

I perch on the edge of his bed, sip my coffee, and watch him through lowered lashes. For the last three weeks, Joao’s been casually dressed in jeans and T-shirts, but today, he’s wearing a suit, and he looks good. Really good. So good that my libido is screaming at me to ignore Matteo’s strictures.

“What will you do all day?”

“I don’t know. Read a book, take a nap. Charlie said she’d teach me how to make beef bourguignon, so maybe I’ll do that today.” I don’t tell him I’m planning to visit Alina because I’m afraid he’d offer to come with me, and I’m even more afraid I’d take him up on it. But I can’t do that. I tried to kidnap Alina, not Joao, and this is my mess to clean up.

“Isn’t that a really complicated dish to make? Don’t overdo it.”

“Stop worrying, I’ll be fine.”

He gives me a deeply skeptical look but finally heads out the door. Once he’s gone, I get dressed and head out.

Ignazio is hovering outside the front door. “Are you looking for Charlie?” I ask him.

I don’t know exactly what happened on the train ride from Paris to Venice, but Charlie claims to hate Ignazio while constantly sneaking glances at him. Ignazio has dropped by at least a dozen times with questions for Joao, questions that are easily asked by text and don’t need an in-person visit.

“No,” he replies, the tips of his ears going red at the mention of Charlie. “Signor Carvalho asked me to keep an eye on you.”

“Did he now? Good. Then you can give me a ride across the harbor to Alina’s gym.”

“Umm—”

“Or I can catch a water taxi.”

The poor kid decides it’s easier to keep an eye on me if he gives me a ride. “I’ll take you there,” he says reluctantly.

I feel bad about manipulating him, but I can’t let anything stop me from my task.

Ignazio helps me into a nearby boat, and we speed across the lagoon. In no time at all, we arrive at the pier. Ignazio docks the boat and escorts me to Alina’s gym. It’s only a short walk, but my footsteps drag as I near it. A pit of guilt opens in my stomach every time I think about what I did to Alina and how bad things could have turned out for her if I’d succeeded. If Tomas hadn’t been in time to rescue her, she’d be in Russia right now, the unwilling bride of a vicious Russian crime lord.

Alina is at the front desk of her gym when I walk in. She catches sight of me and stiffens instinctively, then forces a smile on her face. “Stefania, right?”

Stefania was what Bach used to call me. Every time I hear someone call me that, I feel a little lurch in my gut. “Call me Stefi.”

“Okay.” She looks at me, and her forehead creases in worry. “You don’t look too good. You shouldn’t be up. Does Joao know you’re here?”

My stomach is roiling, and I’m sucking in breaths to keep from throwing up. Guilt is one hell of a drug. “Are you going to tell on me?”

“No, but I am going to insist we grab a coffee next door so you can sit down.”

We head to a coffee shop, and Alina gets us both espressos. “How’s your recovery going?”

“Slow. I’m driving Joao crazy, I’m sure.” I take a sip of my espresso before letting out a deep breath. There’s no point beating around the bush. “I’m sorry I tried to abduct you. At the time, I thought I didn’t have any options, but?—”

“Joao told us you did it to protect Charlie.”

I nod. “I wish I’d tried harder to find a different way to save her.” I stare down at the tablecloth. “She needed my help, but that didn’t give me the right to involve you, and I’m truly sorry I did.”

“I met Charlie yesterday.”

That’s not what I expected her to say. “Did you?”

“She came into the gym. Wanted to learn self-defense.” A smile flickers over her face. “She thinks very highly of you. She said she wouldn’t have survived without you.”

I shake my head. “I had nothing to do with it. She’s the one who had to survive, not me.”

“Why do you say that?” she asks quizzically. “Joao told us a little bit about your childhoods. Surely, it wasn’t easy to survive Bach.”

“It’s. . .” I hesitate, trying to find the best way to word my thoughts. “Whatever else Bach was, he wasn’t interested in us. Sexually, I mean. He didn’t whore us out. What Charlie had to go through. . . Nothing that happened to me was as bad.”

“Sexual violence is deeply terrible,” she says. “I would never trivialize it. But it isn’t the only form of violence. Abuse is abuse, whatever form it takes, and what you went through was absolutely abusive. And, at the risk of being an armchair therapist, I think that when you saw a young girl in trouble, it reminded you very much of yourself, so you instinctively did what you could to help her.” She takes a sip of her espresso. “Do you know my mother’s story?”

I blink at the sudden topic change. “No.”

“My mother met my father when she was Charlie’s age. He was thirty-one.”

“Ah.” I didn’t like Vidone Laurenti when I met him, and now I like him even less. There’s a special place in hell reserved for a grown man who would prey on a teenager.

“He decided she would be his, and he didn’t take no for an answer. She never talked about him. I used to harass her for details about him as a child, never realizing their relationship wasn’t consensual.” Her expression is sad. “It wasn’t until she discovered she was pregnant that she got the courage to flee.”

“I can relate to that.” The safety of my child was the only thing that could overcome my fear of Bach.

She looks up. “You can?”

Oh, right. Nobody in Venice would know about my pregnancy. Joao would never discuss Christopher without my consent. But maybe because Alina’s always been warm and welcoming toward me, I feel comfortable telling her the whole story. “On my last mission, I found out I was pregnant. That’s why I disappeared.” A shadow passes over my heart. “I couldn’t contact Joao for his own safety, and then I lost my child.”

“I’m so sorry,” Alina says, her expression stricken.

“Please don’t feel sorry for me. It doesn’t change anything I did to you.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agrees. “But there’s a reason I brought up my mother. Nobody helped her. Everyone could see what was happening, and not a single person intervened. You were different. You saw what was happening to Charlie, and you helped her.” She takes another sip of espresso. “Besides, as Joao pointed out, if you were really trying to abduct me, it was a very sloppy attempt. I mean, come on. You left me with my phone. A phone that was transmitting my location information to anyone determined enough to track it down.”

I don’t know what to say. She’s offering to forgive me, just like that, but I don’t deserve it.

“Look, can we both agree to move past it? If it makes you feel better, we can get into the ring and beat the crap out of each other. Once you heal, of course.”

“Thank you,” I say softly. “But just so you know, I wouldn’t last a single round. I’m terrible at hand-to-hand combat.”

“Why do I have a feeling that you’re not as bad as you’re pretending to be?” she says. “No, don’t deny it. I’ve seen Joao fight.”

“I’m nowhere as good as him, unfortunately.”

“If you say so,” she replies skeptically. “Tell me, has Matteo cleared you to go out yet?”

“Conditionally. I’m supposed to take it easy for the next two weeks. Hopefully I’ll get the all-clear after that to start working out again. My muscles are going to atrophy if I sit around much longer.”

“Once Matteo pronounces you healed, you need to join us for drinks. We have a girls’ night out every Thursday. What do you think?”

“I don’t think anyone wants me there.”

“Nonsense,” she replies. “Tell me if anyone’s giving you grief, and I’ll threaten to beat them up.” She grins. “We’re a family here, which means we sometimes drive each other crazy. If anyone should be annoyed with you, it’s me, and I’m inviting you. Say you’ll come.”

“I’d love to.” I try to take a sip of the espresso, but my stomach roils again.

Alina notices. “You’ve barely touched your coffee,” she says, looking concerned. “Are you feeling okay?”

I feel awful. “This is more activity than I’ve had in two weeks, and the espresso isn’t sitting well,” I say with a wan smile. “I should probably get back home and lie down.”

She starts to say something and then stops herself. “Of course,” she says. “I see Ignazio hovering outside. Let me get him, and then we’ll get you home.”

Another couple of weeks go by. Valentina Colonna, the mafia hacker, is doing her best to find Pavel Dachev, but he’s proving to be elusive.

And there’s nothing I can do except heal and wait.

A part of me is chomping at the bit to find the asshole who ordered a young child to open fire on me. It’s the same part that burns to scratch the last name off my list and finally avenge my son.

But despite my impatience, I’m also happy.

Joao and I are living together in my dream city. When the weather is nice, he shows me all his favorite places in Venice. We take a trip to Murano to see the glass blowers and another to Lido to walk along the beach. I pretend I’m a tourist and take a scenic tour of the city on a gondola. We stop in local bars for an ombra and cicchetti, though my stomach is still rebellious, and even a sip of wine makes me queasy.

On cold and blustery days, I sometimes head to one of the many museums dotting the city, or, more often than not, I curl up in my pajamas and read, Mimi napping next to me. Every night, I fall asleep with Joao at my side, safe and secure, with nobody wanting to kill us, and that, more than anything else, is a dream come true.

Charlie lives with us, and that’s pretty great as well. Her friend Francesca is a runner, too, and no matter how cold it is, the two of them wake up at dawn to go for runs. She’s found a job as a tourist guide for French tourists, and she’s taking Italian lessons every evening. Being in a safe and supportive environment agrees with her.

Joao’s happy about the delay in finding Dachev. “I almost lost you,” he says. “I want you to be fully healed before we go in search of Dachev again. To be honest, I’d prefer you to stay behind, but?—”

“But it’s not going to happen.”

“I know,” he says unhappily. “I’ve resigned myself to it.”

Before I know it, five weeks have gone by since I got shot, and it’s time for my last check-up.

We’re about to leave for Matteo’s clinic when Joao gets a phone call. I can only hear his end of the conversation, but it sounds like a crisis. Sure enough, when he hangs up, he looks harried. “One of our ships got boarded by customs agents in Greece,” he says. “It’s a mess.”

“Go handle it. I can go to this appointment on my own.”

“Are you sure?”

“Absolutely. It’s a routine check-up, and Matteo’s clinic is just around the corner.” I’m hoping the doctor will tell me I can start having sex again. For the first couple of weeks, I was in too much pain to be horny, but lately, it’s been torture to sleep next to Joao and not fool around. I push his shoulder. “Go. I’ll be fine on my own.”

Once he heads out, I walk the five minutes to Matteo’s Giudecca clinic. I tell the receptionist my name and barely have time to take a seat before Matteo shows up to usher me inside. “How are you feeling?” he asks once he’s taken a blood sample.

“I’m great.”

“No pain?”

“A twinge or two, nothing serious. The queasiness is the only thing that’s still bothering me.”

His expression sharpens. “What queasiness?”

“I’m nauseous a lot. I figured it was because of the stomach wound.”

“You shouldn’t be nauseous,” he replies. He opens a drawer and pulls out a specimen cup. “I’m going to need a urine sample.”

“Awkward.”

He rolls his eyes. “I am a doctor, Stefi.” He opens the door for me. “There’s a bathroom down the hall.”

I pee into the cup and return to Matteo’s office, my face flaming. “Here you go.”

“Wait here,” he says, taking it from me. “I need to run a couple of quick tests.”

He’s gone for ten minutes. “It’s probably nothing,” I tell him when he returns. “I’m sure I’ll be fine in a week or two. I’ve always been a slow healer.”

He clears his throat. “Stefi,” he says. “This isn’t a side-effect from your wound.”

“It isn’t?”

He shakes his head. “No. You’re feeling nauseous because you’re pregnant.”