Chapter 10 - The Circle
One year later.
The dining room table at the villa was twenty feet long, carved from raw chestnut, and covered in the chaotic remnants of an Italian Sunday feast.
Empty bowls of handmade pappardelle, platters of roasted sea bass, half-eaten figs, and glasses of ruby-red Chianti cluttered the linen runner. Mateo and Lev sat at the far end, arguing loudly in a mix of Sicilian and Russian over a soccer match being broadcast from the radio in the kitchen.
In the center of the table sat the girls.
They were seven now. They had grown three inches, their skin browned by the Tuscan summer, their hair cut into different styles: Nova wore hers short in a bob that matched her mischievous grin; Stella had long, loose curls; Luna kept her single, elegant braid.
They were arguing. Loudly.
"It is my turn to feed the horses!" Nova declared, banging her spoon against her water glass.
"You fed them yesterday, Nova!" Stella shouted back, waving a fork covered in tomato sauce. "You gave them too many carrots and Barnaby had a stomachache!"
"He liked the carrots!"
"Girls," Becca said, setting a bowl of fresh cherries between them. "Use your inside voices, or neither of you is going to the stables today."
Both girls instantly piped down, shooting each other conspiratorial glares before bursting into shared giggles.
Valentino sat at the head of the table. He was leaning back in his chair, watching the chaos with a look of quiet, unshakeable contentment. On his left hand, a simple gold wedding band caught the afternoon light.
He caught Becca’s eye as she took her seat beside him.
"You look tired, Mrs. Duca," he murmured, his thumb stroking the back of her wrist under the table.
"I’m three weeks away from finishing my doctoral dissertation, my husband refuses to let his former bodyguards stop guarding the chicken coop, and your daughters have decided that *Fork* should sleep in their bed tonight," she sighed, leaning her head against his shoulder. "I’m exhausted."
"I could order them to bed," he offered with a wicked smile. "I still know how to be intimidating."
"Valentino, yesterday Nova made you wear a flower crown and drink invisible tea for two hours. Your days of being intimidating are officially over."
Mateo snorted from the end of the table. Valentino shot him a glare that held zero malice, before turning his face into Becca’s hair, inhaling the scent of lemon and lavender that had become the defining fragrance of his new life.
Luna suddenly stood up from her chair.
The table went quiet as the oldest daughter picked up a clean plate, a small bowl of steamed peas from the vegetable platter, and a silver fork.
She walked deliberately toward the center of the table, setting the plate down between her father and Becca.
With careful, practiced movements, Luna placed four peas on the porcelain.
One for Valentino.
One for Becca.
One for Stella.
One for Nova.
Then she took a fifth pea and placed it right in the center.
"What's that one, Luna?" Valentino asked softly, his voice thick with emotion.
Luna looked up at Becca, her dark eyes sparkling with intelligence and a secret she had carried all morning. She laid the fork across the plate, dragging the tines through a smear of olive oil, connecting the four outer points to the center.
Not a triangle. Not a square.
A star.
"That's for the baby," Luna said, smiling at Becca’s belly. "So he knows he's connected, too."
Becca froze. Her hand flew to her stomach, which had only begun to show the faintest curve beneath her summer dress—a secret she and Valentino had confirmed with the doctor in Florence only yesterday morning, before telling a single soul.
Valentino stared at his eldest daughter, stunned, before breaking into a wide, luminous smile that lit up the entire room.
"How did you know?" he whispered.
Luna climbed onto the chair beside Becca, wrapping her small arms around Becca’s shoulders, pressing her cheek against the woman who had pulled them all out of the dark.
"I didn't need words to know," Luna said, kissing Becca’s cheek. "I listened to the house. The house is happy now."
Stella and Nova scrambled out of their chairs, crowding around Becca, demanding to touch the place where their new brother was sleeping. Mateo raised his wine glass in a silent, respectful toast from across the room, while Lev wiped an uncharacteristic tear from his scarred cheek with the back of a massive hand.
May you like
Outside, the bells of the village church began to ring, tolling the hour across the sun-drenched hills.
The silence that had haunted the Duca family for two agonizing years had not just been broken. It had been filled—with voices, with arguments, with laughter, and with an enduring, unbreakable love that no darkness would ever silence again.
