Because three days after Giovanni arrived in Boston, I noticed men watching my building.
Not Giovanni’s men. I had learned to recognize his. Clean suits. Quiet efficiency. Eyes that scanned instead of stared.
These men wore leather jackets and lingered too long across the street. One had a tattoo curling above his collar. When I took Luca to the pharmacy, they followed half a block behind.
That night, Giovanni confirmed what I already feared.
“The Sinaloa cartel has been expanding into the Northeast,” he said. “I have been one of the things preventing that.”
“One of the things?”
His expression said not to ask.
I asked anyway.
“Are they watching us because of you?”
“They found you because of me,” he said. “When I came to Boston, I moved too publicly. Helicopter. Doctors. Security. I let emotion override strategy.”
“You came because your son was sick.”
“Yes,” he said. “And now they know I have a son.”
The words fell between us like a death sentence.
Forty-eight hours later, I signed the contract.
Not because I trusted Giovanni.
Because I trusted danger less.
The apartment he arranged in Manhattan was on the Upper East Side, high above the city, with views of Central Park and windows so large they made me feel exposed. Men stood outside the building. A pediatric practice affiliated with Columbia had Luca’s records before I finished unpacking. A nursery appeared fully furnished, down to the same brand of stuffed rabbit Luca loved.
Giovanni came every evening at six.
He never missed.
At first, I told myself he came for Luca. Then one night, I found him in the kitchen after putting our son to bed, his shirtsleeves rolled, attempting to warm a bottle he no longer needed because Luca had already eaten.
“You don’t have to do that,” I said.
“I know.”
“Then why are you?”
He looked at the bottle, then at me.
“Because I missed everything. His first cry. His first smile. His first fever until it almost killed him. I do not know how to get that time back, so I am trying not to miss what is in front of me.”
My anger faltered.
I hated that.
A month after moving to New York, the watchers returned.
Three men near the playground. One tattooed. One taking pictures. One pretending to smoke while his eyes never left Luca’s stroller.
When I told Giovanni, he went still.
“Pack tonight,” he said. “Tomorrow you and Luca move to Westchester.”
“Your house?”
“Our house, if you let it be.”
I nearly laughed.
“Don’t make it sound romantic.”
“It is not romantic. It is fortified.”
At least he was honest.
The Westchester estate sat behind iron gates and stone walls on forty acres of winter-bare land. The house was all glass, stone, and clean modern lines, beautiful in the way a blade is beautiful.
Inside were panic buttons disguised as light switches, reinforced doors, cameras, guards, and a nursery across the hall from my bedroom.
“This is not a prison,” Giovanni said, as if he could read my face. “The security is to keep threats out, not to keep you in.”
