THE FAMILY DINNER
PART ONE: THE PREPARATION
6:34 PM — Safe House Kitchen
Lucia had insisted on cooking.
“You’ve been fighting empires,” she’d said to Aria that morning, with the kind of gentle certainty that came from being a mother. “Today, you rest. I cook. We eat. We’re a family.”
Aria hadn’t known how to argue with that. So she’d acquiesced, and now the kitchen smelled like her childhood not her actual childhood, which had been filled with the sterile perfection of hired chefs and formal dinners. But the childhood she should have had. The one where someone who loved you made food with their own hands.
Lucia was making osso buco braised veal shanks in a red wine reduction, the kind of dish that took hours and love in equal measure. The smell filled the entire safe house, warm and
