Chapter 4 - The Fortress of Valenza
The estate—Villa Valenza—was not just a home; it was a seventeenth-century fortress perched high upon the rolling hills of Siena, surrounded by endless rows of olive groves, stone ramparts, and high-tech biometric security.
For the first two weeks, I lived in a surreal bubble of luxury and hyper-vigilance.
Maya flourished immediately. The estate’s vast gardens became her kingdom. Teresa, the warm-hearted head housekeeper, baked fresh brioche every morning, while two dedicated guards—under strict orders to keep their sidearms concealed—escorted Maya whenever she wanted to feed the estate’s peacocks.
My days revolved around Leo.
Every three hours, I sat in the sunlit nursery nursing the boy. With each passing day, the sickly pallor left his cheeks, replaced by healthy, chubby folds of baby skin. His pediatrician from Florence visited weekly, marveling at the miraculous turnaround in the child’s digestive tracts and weight curves.
Matteo was an elusive phantom. He departed at dawn in armored convoys and returned long after midnight, smelling faintly of gunpowder, expensive espresso, and rain. Yet, no matter how late he returned, his heavy boots would always pause outside the nursery door.
One night, around 2:00 AM, I was burping Leo in the rocking chair beside the French doors when the handle turned.
Matteo stepped inside. He had stripped off his tie, his linen shirt unbuttoned at the throat, revealing the edge of a fresh, taped dressing across his right collarbone.
He froze when he saw me awake. “I didn't mean to disturb you.”
“You’re bleeding,” I said, setting Leo safely in his oak crib.
“It’s nothing. A disagreement during a shipment transfer in Livorno.”
I walked over to the medical kit on the dresser. “Sit down, Matteo. Six years in emergency trauma means I know the difference between 'nothing' and a puncture wound that needs re-stitching.”
He looked at me, an amused, self-deprecating smirk touching his lips, before sinking onto the nursery sofa.
As I cleaned the wound with iodine and carefully replaced the dressing, his gaze never left my face. The close proximity was intoxicating—the heat radiating from his skin, the scent of cedarwood, and the raw, unpolished masculinity of a man who ruled by fear but spoke to his children in whispers.
“You’re very good at fixing broken things, Clara,” he murmured.
“I’m good at keeping people alive,” I replied, pulling the adhesive tight. “Including you, if you’d stop getting shot at.”
He caught my wrist. His grip was warm, gentle, yet electric.
May you like
“My enemies know Leo is my heart,” Matteo said, his voice dropping into a dark, intimate timber. “And now they know you are the one keeping his heart beating.”
Before I could answer, the red emergency beacon above the nursery door began to pulse silently.
