Chapter 17
Lena kissed me on a Tuesday.
No music.
No moonlight.
No dramatic rain.
Just a kitchen full of flour because Mia had tried to help make bread and declared it “snow food.”
I had flour on my jacket.
Lena had flour in her hair.
Mia had flour everywhere.
Rafael walked in, saw us, and walked out again.
Smart man.
Lena laughed.
I brushed flour from her cheek.
She went quiet.
Then she kissed me.
Soft.
Brief.
Terrifying.
Mia gasped.
“Contract update!”
Lena pulled back, blushing.
I looked at Mia.
“Eat your bread.”
“It’s raw.”
“Then supervise Rosa.”
She ran off shouting for legal paper.
Lena covered her face.
“I’m sorry.”
“I’m not.”
Her fingers trembled.
“I loved Matteo.”
“I know.”
“I still do, in the way you love someone gone.”
“I know.”
“You loved your wife.”
“Yes.”
“Do we have room for all that?”
I looked toward the hall where Mia was yelling that love needed signatures.
“Yes.”
Lena smiled.
“Good.”
We moved carefully after that.
No rushing.
No pretending grief had politely left.
It stayed.
But it made space.
Mia created a new contract.
Damiano and Mommy can kiss but not be weird at school.
We both signed.
Rafael refused to witness.
Rosa signed twice.
The city settled into a new balance.
The Verrone name no longer carried the same fear.
Some called me weak.
Others came to me for protection because I now used power with paperwork, cameras, lawyers, and the kind of reputation that still made bad men reconsider.
I did not become innocent.
Life is not that clean.
But I became accountable.
That mattered.
Anika Hale once told me, “You’re easier to work with when you don’t threaten people.”
“I still think it.”
“I know. Your eyebrows confess.”
Mia loved her.
She called her Detective Annie.
Anika hated it.
May you like
Then bought her stickers.
Everyone surrendered eventually.
