Page 69 of From Italy With Love

As I approached the crib, I saw his face red and scrunched, his tiny fists waving in protest at the injustice of the world. Six months old and already he knew something was wrong. Already he could sense that his world had shifted, that the warmth and safety he’d known his entire life had fractured. Babies knew. They always knew.

“I’m here,” I told him, lifting him against my chest, feeling the familiar weight of him, the way he fit perfectly in the crook of my arm. “Daddy’s here.”

But it wasn’t enough. It was never enough. Because he wanted his mother, and I couldn’t give her to him. He settled against me but didn’t stop fussing, his small body tense with confusion and need.

I couldn’t give her to either of us.

I changed his diaper mechanically, my hands moving through the motions while my mind spiraled elsewhere. To Boston. To Madigan, sitting by her uncle’s bedside, her hand in his, her father hovering nearby like a vulture, working his poison into her guilt and her love. Reminding her of every obligation, every debt she supposedly owed to a family that never protected her from anything that mattered.

You’re being selfish. Your mother needs you. Your family needs you.

I could hear his voice in my head as clearly as if he were standing in the room right now, as if the walls themselves were echoing his manipulation back at me. I could imagine exactly how he was breaking her down, piece by piece, wearing away at her resolve with those same tired tactics he’d perfected over decades. Using her compassion against her. Using her sense of duty, her guilt, and her love. Twisting everything good about her into a weapon to control her.

And I couldn’t do anything to stop it. I couldn’t reach through hundreds of miles to pull her back. I couldn’t make her see what he was doing. I couldn’t protect her from the man who was supposed to be her father.

Henry latched onto his bottle, his eyes watching me with that serious, knowing look babies sometimes had. Like he could see right through me, past the calm façade I was desperately trying to maintain. Like he knew his father was falling apart at the seams, unraveling thread by thread with each day that passed. Like he understood, on some fundamental level, that something was terribly, terribly wrong.

“Your mother loves you,” I told him, my voice rough and raw from disuse. “She loves you so much. She’s coming back. She promised.”

My lie tasted like ash in my mouth. Like betrayal.

Day seven

A week. She had been gone for a full week now.

I hadn’t left the house except to check on the horses, and even those trips were rushed, frantic things where I was constantly glancing at my phone, terrified I’d miss her call or her text or some sign that she was okay. I hadn’t showered in two days because it felt wrong to put Henry down for that long, to be that far away from him even for ten minutes. I hadn’t eaten anything that didn’t come from a can or a box that I could prepare one-handed while holding Henry against my chest, feeling his heartbeat, reminding myself that at least he was still here.

The house felt wrong without her. Too big. Too empty. Too quiet except for Henry’s occasional cries and the creaking of old wood settling. Every room echoed with her absence, with the ghost of her laughter, her voice, her presence that used to fill every corner of this place we were supposed to be building together.

I found myself standing in our bedroom at odd hours—two in the morning, four, dawn breaking gray and cold through the windows—staring at her pillow, at the clothes still hanging in the closet like she might need them tomorrow, at the book on her nightstand with a bookmark halfway through. At all the evidence of a life interrupted mid-sentence.

Waiting.

Always waiting.

Like she had just stepped out for a moment and would be back any second to scoop Henry into her arms and kiss my cheek and tell me everything was going to be fine. Like she was just running a quick errand at the store, or taking a walk to clear her head, or sitting in the garden with a cup of tea. Like this was all temporary, a brief intermission in our life together.

But she was not coming back.

I knew it with a certainty that sat in my chest like a stone, heavy and cold and immovable. I knew it in my bones, in the hollow ache that took up permanent residence behind my ribs. It was the kind of knowing that didn’t need proof or evidence, that existed beyond logic or reason. The kind of knowing that woke me at three in the morning and wouldn’t let me go back to sleep. The kind that turned food to ash in my mouth and made every breath feel like work.

I sat there for a long time, holding Henry against my chest, staring at nothing. The baby slept peacefully, oblivious to the fact that his mother was gone, that she might never come home.

Not coming back.

The possibility—no, the probability—sat in my chest like a tumor, growing larger with each passing day, each unanswered call, each report from Sinclair that told me she was still there, still trapped in that hell.

How long until she forgot what it felt like to be happy? How long until Nolan convinced her that everything she wanted and believed in was a mistake, a rebellion she needed to atone for?

Day ten

I wasn’t sleeping anymore. Not really. I lay in bed for a few hours each night, Henry in his crib beside me, and stared at the ceiling while my mind raced through scenarios. The same thoughts circled endlessly, like vultures waiting for something to die. My sanity, probably.

What if I went to Boston? What if I showed up at that house and demanded she come home? I could jump in the car, drive through the night, and be there by morning. I could stand on that pristine doorstep in my wrinkled clothes and bloodshot eyes and tell her that Henry needed her.

That I needed her.

But I knew how that would end. Nolan would have me killed before I made it through the door. Or worse—he would use my presence as proof that I was dangerous, unstable, exactly the kind of man Madigan should stay away from. He would twist it into a narrative about obsession and control, and she would believe him because she was vulnerable right now. Because grief made her susceptible to the people who claimed to have her best interests at heart.