Chapter 13 - GIANNNA WILL NOT RECOVER IN MY MOTHER’S HOUSE
I assumed Gianna would come home to the Bellante estate.
She did not.
“Where do you want to go?”
“Our apartment.”
We had a city apartment near my office.
Smaller.
Private.
Used mostly during work weeks.
I stared.
“With twins?”
“Yes.”
“Staff?”
“One postpartum nurse at night for two weeks.”
“Security?”
“One exterior detail.”
“Gianna—”
She looked at me.
I stopped.
“Okay.”
She had spent her first day as a mother watching relatives discuss her sons as transferable family assets.
The last thing she needed was recovery inside the building Lucia had controlled for twenty-seven years.
So we went to the apartment.
No Lucia.
No Serena.
No extended family.
Nico slept badly.
Luca worse.
Gianna cried in the shower.
I burned formula by somehow misunderstanding the water warmer.
Nolan said:
“You cannot burn formula.”
Apparently I found a way to make it too hot and waste it.
Normal failure.
Useful.
Then the twins’ bands.
Hospital removed them properly before discharge after new identifiers were issued and identity confirmed.
Gianna did not keep them.
I expected she might.
Evidence copies existed.
Photographs existed.
The physical bands became hospital/police evidence where relevant.
The new discharge bands were later discarded normally.
No shrine.
May you like
No framed proof.
Babies do not need to grow up under forensic artifacts.
