Chapter 20 - Breakfast, Again
Three months later, Alessandro ate breakfast at a table half the size of the one in the Romano estate.
He had moved out while the house was being renovated and the staff structure rebuilt. The old breakfast room held too many echoes.
Maria and Emma came on Saturdays now, not as employees, but as guests.
That distinction mattered to Maria.
It mattered to Alessandro too.
Emma climbed onto a chair and inspected the pancakes with exaggerated suspicion.
“Blueberries?” she asked.
“Yes.”
“Did you see them go in?”
“I made them.”
She stared at him. “You?”
“I can cook.”
Maria laughed from the doorway. “He can heat things.”
Alessandro pointed his spatula at her. “Slander.”
Rosie sat in the center of the table wearing a new red dress over her old patched body. Emma had refused every offer to replace her.
Some things did not need replacing to be made safe again.
The trials were still months away. The youth center remained closed while engineers rebuilt damaged sections. Donors had returned slowly. Some never would.
Victor no longer served as Alessandro’s doctor. They were trying, awkwardly, to learn how to be brothers instead.
Enzo sent letters from jail.
Alessandro had not opened them.
Not yet.
Carlo’s lawyers blamed Enzo. Enzo’s lawyers blamed Carlo. Pierce blamed fear. Isabella blamed no one in her final statement but herself.
Alessandro had stopped needing one clean villain.
The truth was messier: fear, pride, love, shame, cowardice, and the family habit of protecting the wrong person had built the disaster together.
Emma poured syrup onto her pancake.
“Too much,” Maria said.
“It’s Saturday.”
“That is not a medical condition.”
Emma grinned.
Then she pushed the butter dish toward Alessandro.
He raised an eyebrow.
“You first?”
She shook her head very seriously.
“No, sir. You’re the grown-up.”
Alessandro looked at the butter.
For half a second, the old fear returned: Isabella’s frozen hand, Enzo’s gun, Carlo’s grip on Emma’s shoulder, his father’s voice on a tape from eleven years ago.
Then Emma tore off a piece of pancake, dipped it into the butter herself, and ate it.
“There,” she said with her mouth full. “Safe.”
Maria scolded her for talking while chewing.
Alessandro laughed.
Nothing in the room was elegant. The syrup bottle was sticky. One pancake was burned at the edge. Rosie leaned sideways because her stuffing had shifted after the fountain.
May you like
It was the safest breakfast Alessandro Romano had ever eaten.
He reached for the butter.
