From ashes to fire

New mornings

*Livia*

I wake before the house does.

For a few seconds, I do not know where I am. The room is too large. The ceiling is too high. Rain has stopped tapping at the window, leaving only the hiss of tires on the street beyond the walls.

My hand goes to the shoe on the floor beside the bed.

Then I feel the hard plastic edge beneath my fingers.

Bellwether wristband.

Everything comes back in pieces. The hotel. Rafe's hand around my wrist. Enzo's message, my storage locker open on a phone screen. Nico standing in my doorway while I set a price on my own escape.

Three years.

The number sits inside my chest like a stone.

I get dressed in the clothes Rosa bought, gray sweatpants and a black long-sleeved shirt that fits better than it has any right to. The white sneakers are half a size too large. I lace them anyway.

Then I wash my face, pull my hair into a rough knot, and unlock the door.

Elio is asleep in the chair across the hall.

His head has fallen back against the wall. One hand rests close to the gun beneath his jacket. There is an empty coffee cup balanced on the windowsill beside him and a crumpled lemon-candy wrapper on the floor.

I stand there for a second.

Nobody has slept outside my door since I was a child and Mama had a bad fever. Nonna used to drag a kitchen chair into the hall with a blanket and a book, telling me she was only there because the radiator worked better outside our room.

I had known she was listening for Mama anyway.

The floorboard creaks under my shoe.

Elio wakes at once.

His hand goes to his weapon before his eyes are fully open. Then he sees me and drops it.

"Morning," he says, voice rough.

"Do you always sleep armed?"

"Only on weekdays."

I look at the dark circles beneath his eyes. "You were out here all night."

"Part of it."

"You could have slept in a bed."

"Could have." He gets up, rolling one shoulder. "You could have too."

"I did."

"Then we're both doing great."

I almost smile. The feeling is so unfamiliar that it vanishes before it reaches my mouth.

"Is Nico awake?"

Elio checks his phone. "Been awake since five. He had three calls with lawyers, two calls with people who hate lawyers, and one argument with his uncle."

"How can you tell?"

"He used the word regrettable. That means somebody is yelling."

I follow him downstairs.

The kitchen smells like coffee, toasted bread, and onions frying in olive oil. Morning light spills over the old tiled floor. A woman in her sixties stands at the stove in a floral robe beneath an apron, moving a wooden spoon through a pan with the grim focus of somebody handling explosives.

She turns when we enter.

Her dark hair is threaded heavily with gray, piled high at the back of her head. She takes me in with one fast look, from my borrowed clothes to the bruises at my wrist.

Then she points the spoon at me.

"You are too thin."

I blink.

Elio mutters, "Rosa, maybe give her five minutes before you adopt her."

"Five minutes is plenty." Rosa turns back to the stove. "Sit. Eggs are almost ready."

"I am not hungry."

"That is not an answer I asked for."

Elio pulls out a chair for me. "Good luck."

I sit because I do not know what else to do.

Rosa sets a plate in front of me, scrambled eggs, toast, sliced tomatoes, and a small bowl of fruit. It looks like breakfast at Nonna's table, except Nonna would have put too much butter on the toast and told me fruit was for people with weak character.

"Thank you," I say.

Rosa studies me for a beat, then nods. "Eat before the men start making trouble in my kitchen."

A door opens at the far end of the room.

Nico walks in wearing a dark shirt and black trousers, his hair still damp from a shower. He looks better than any man should after sleeping two hours, though the faint gray beneath his eyes gives him away.

His gaze lands on me.

"Good morning."

"Is it?"

"Debatable." He reaches for the coffee pot.

I take a bite of toast because Rosa is watching.

Nico pours a cup, black, then pauses when his phone rings. He glances at the screen.

Everything in him changes.

Not visibly, not enough that someone who did not know to watch would notice. His shoulders tighten. His jaw sets. He takes the coffee cup to the counter, sets it down untouched, and removes his jacket from the back of a chair.

He does not put it on.

He folds it once over his arm, fingers pressing into the black wool.

Stress, I think.

The memory of him on the bathroom floor moves through me, hot skin beneath my hands, pain pulling his muscles tight.

He answers the call.

"Moretti."

He listens.

Rosa reaches over and pours me orange juice without asking. I keep my eyes on my plate, but Nico's voice carries through the kitchen.

"No, you do not send anyone to Bellwether."

A pause.

"I understand what they filed."

My stomach drops.

Nico looks directly at me.

The room loses its warmth.

"Send it to Conti," he says. "And have Shah meet us at the courthouse in forty minutes."

He ends the call.

Elio has stopped pretending to eat the apple he picked up from the counter.

"What did they file?" I ask.

Nico does not sit.

"Vitale's attorney submitted an emergency petition at Bellwether this morning."

The fork slips from my fingers and strikes the plate.

For a second, I am back under fluorescent lights. I can taste the powdery pills dissolving on my tongue. I hear the lock turn in the white door.

"He cannot do that," I say.

"He can file it. A judge has not signed it."

"What does it say?"

Nico's eyes hold mine.

"That you are a danger to yourself. That you have disappeared while emotionally unstable. That I removed you from the hotel against your will."

My hands go cold.

"Did Enzo say that?"

"His attorney did."

"Same thing."

Nico gives one short nod.

Elio swears under his breath.

Rosa stops stirring the eggs. Her face has gone hard in a way that tells me she has known this family too long to be surprised by cruelty.

Nico sets his jacket over the chair again.

"We are moving the signing up."

The words strike like a slap.

I push away from the table. "No."

"Liv."

"No. You do not get a phone call and decide I am getting married before breakfast."

"The petition gives us less time."

"It gives you less time."

His expression cools. "It gives Vitale an opening to have you taken into medical custody."

"I know what it gives him."

The kitchen goes quiet.

I can feel all of them looking at me. Rosa with the spoon in her hand. Elio near the counter. Nico standing across from me like a locked door in a dark suit.

My body wants to go blank. Smile. Make my voice pleasant. Ask intelligent questions until nobody sees that I am one wrong word away from shaking apart.

So I do what I learned at Bellwether.

I sit back down.

"Please explain the legal position," I say.

Nico's gaze narrows.

My voice sounds calm. I hate it.

"Vitale's counsel has your clinic records," Nico says. "They have filed for an emergency evaluation based on prior admission, recent reports of distress, and your disappearance from the hotel."

"Reports from whom?"

"Vitale employees."

I rub my temple, "Men who tried to drag me into a suite."

He nods, "Yes."

"Will a judge believe them?"

"I do not know."

At least he says it.

I fold my hands on the table so no one sees them tremble.

"And marriage changes that how?"

"Once we are legally married, Vitale loses any claim that he is your domestic partner or emergency contact. His petition becomes harder to support. Your lawyer can answer it directly. My legal team can force the hearing into open court if necessary."

"Your legal team."

"Your lawyer is waiting at the courthouse," Elio says. "Avital Shah. You chose her name from the list Nico gave you last night."

I remember. Three names on a legal pad delivered after midnight. One criminal defense attorney. One family law specialist with a private practice near City Hall. One woman from a nonprofit clinic who had spent fifteen years suing hospitals and police departments.

I picked Shah because her biography said she had represented women against involuntary commitment orders.

"She is not yours?" I ask Nico.

"No."

"How is she getting paid?"

"I paid a retainer into an account she controls. She represents you, not me. It is in the contract."

Money moves people. I know that. But the fact that he has done what I asked without trying to hide the mechanism leaves me with nothing easy to fight.

"Can I speak to her alone?" I ask.

"Yes."

"Can I refuse after I speak to her?"

Nico's face is unreadable.

"Yes."

My stomach knots harder.

"Will you still protect me if I refuse?"

A muscle moves in his jaw.

"Yes."

Elio looks at him, then at me.

Nico says, "I will not withdraw security because you reject the contract."

The answer gives me no relief. It only makes the choice heavier.

Rosa puts a hand on the back of my chair. Her palm is warm, brief.

"Eat one more bite," she says. "Then go fight men with paperwork."

I eat because she tells me to, and because my body needs something solid inside it before I walk into a courthouse and change my name.