Chapter 12 The Waiting
Thursday afternoon found Aria reviewing post-operative notes without actually reading them. The words blurred together on the screen while her mind replayed Wednesday morning in vivid detail. The way Dante's voice had softened when he talked about his sister. The warmth of his palm when their fingers had touched across the café table. The text that had arrived last night: Dream of good things.
She had dreamed. And every single dream had featured him.
Aria closed the chart with more force than necessary, disgusted with herself. She was a cardiac surgeon. Focused. Disciplined. She didn't spend her workdays daydreaming about patients like some lovesick teenager.
Except Dante wasn't really a patient anymore. Not in the way that mattered. He was something else entirely, something she didn't have a name for yet.
Her phone sat silent on her desk. No messages. Not that she'd been checking. She definitely hadn't picked it up seventeen times since lunch, and hadn't felt that flutter of disappointment each time the screen stayed dark.
Aria forced herself to finish the notes, signed off on two discharge orders, and escaped to her car before anyone could pull her into another conversation. The drive home felt longer than usual, traffic thick with Roman drivers who'd apparently forgotten how turn signals worked.
Friday evening stretched ahead like a prison sentence.
Aria tried to read the latest cardiac surgery journal. Made it through half a page before realizing she'd absorbed nothing. I tried to watch television. Couldn't tell anyone what show was playing. Made pasta for dinner and left it congealed in the pot, appetite gone.
The apartment felt too quiet. Too empty. Wednesday morning was only two days behind her, and already the memory felt like something precious she was afraid to examine too closely in case it dissolved.
Her phone sat on the coffee table. Silent. Mocking.
She wouldn't text him first. That would be desperate. Needy. She was neither of those things.
Aria picked up her phone. Put it down. Picked it up again.
This was ridiculous.
She threw herself into cleaning instead. Scrubbed the kitchen until it gleamed. Organized her closet by color. Alphabetized her medical textbooks. Anything to stop thinking about dark eyes and rough voices and the way her name sounded when he said it.
By ten o'clock, she'd run out of tasks. The apartment was spotless. And she was exhausted in a way that had nothing to do with physical exertion.
She crawled into bed, set her alarm, and stared at the ceiling for an hour before sleep finally claimed her.
Saturday afternoon, Aria found herself standing in front of her closet, staring at the top shelf where a leather-bound photo album gathered dust.
She hadn't looked at it in over a year. Maybe longer. The album was a relic from before everything became digital, filled with actual photographs that could yellow and fade, physical proof that the past had existed beyond memory.
Aria pulled it down, carried it to the couch, opened the cover with hands that trembled slightly.
Her mother's face smiled up at her.
Camilla Salvini was beautiful. Dark hair that fell in waves past her shoulders, warm brown eyes that crinkled at the corners when she laughed, a smile that suggested she found joy in everything. Aria traced the image with one finger, remembering things she'd thought she'd forgotten. Her mother's laugh. The way she smelled like lavender. How she'd sung while cooking dinner, off-key but enthusiastic.
Aria turned the pages slowly. Camilla at her wedding, young and radiant in white. Camilla pregnant, glowing with that particular joy of expectant mothers. Camilla holding infant Aria, looking down at her daughter with such fierce love it made Aria's chest ache.
So many moments captured. So many memories frozen in time.
Then she turned another page and stopped.
The photograph was from a funeral. Aria could tell by the black dresses, the somber expressions, the way everyone stood with that particular stiffness people adopted in the presence of death.
Camilla stood beside her younger sister, Isabetta. The resemblance was clear in the bone structure, the shape of their faces, but everything else was different. Where Camilla's expression showed open grief, Isabetta's face held calculation. Sharp features set in hard lines, ice-blue eyes that seemed to dissect rather than mourn, a mouth pressed thin with something that looked more like fury than sadness.
Even then, maybe fifteen or twenty years ago, Isabetta had looked intense. Watchful. Like she was cataloging everything, storing information for later use.
The memory surfaced without warning.
Aria had been ten years old at her mother's funeral. She'd worn a black dress that was too big, held her father's hand while strangers offered condolences she didn't understand. And she remembered Aunt Isabetta, kneeling down to her level, those ice-blue eyes boring into hers.
What had she said? The memory was hazy, distorted by time and the fog of childhood grief, but fragments remained.
"Your mother was special, Aria. She deserved better than this."
"Better than what?" child-Aria had asked.
"Better than lies."
Then Bruno had pulled Aria away, and Isabetta had stood watching them with an expression that, looking back now, seemed less like grief and more like suspicion.
Adult-Aria had dismissed it as the strange things people said at funerals, expressions of denial that death had come so suddenly and senselessly.
But what if it wasn't denial? What if Isabetta had meant something specific?
The questions were uncomfortable. Painful. Aria closed the album, returned it to its shelf, and tried to push the thoughts away.
They wouldn't go.
Saturday evening, her phone buzzed.
Dante's name appeared on the screen above a simple question: What's your favorite place in Rome?
Aria stared at the message, her pulse doing complicated things. She typed several responses, deleted them all, finally settled on: The Aventine Keyhole. You?
His response came quickly. Wherever you are.
She set the phone down, face burning, smiling despite herself.
Sunday morning brought another message. This time just a photograph: sunrise over the Tiber, golden light painting the water, the city waking up in shades of amber and rose. No caption. Just the image.
Aria saved it to her photos without examining why.
Monday meant returning to the hospital, to the routine of rounds and surgeries and consultations. Between a valve replacement and a bypass repair, Aria grabbed coffee with Sienna in the cafeteria.
"You seem different," Sienna said, studying Aria's face with the knowing look of a best friend who missed nothing. "Lighter. I haven't seen you like this in forever."
"I'm the same as always." But Aria knew the denial was pointless. Sienna could read her too well.
"Sure you are." Sienna's smile was warm, genuine. "Whoever he is, I'm glad. You deserve to be happy."
Aria opened her mouth to deflect, to change the subject, but Sienna continued before she could speak.
"Oh, weird thing. Your Aunt Isabetta called me last week. Completely out of nowhere." Sienna frowned slightly. "Asked if you were okay, if anything had changed in your life recently. She seemed... I don't know. Worried? Or maybe just curious. It was strange. She never calls me."
Ice slid down Aria's spine. "What did you tell her?"
"Just that you were fine. Working a lot, like always. Why would she ask me instead of calling you directly?"
"I don't know." But Aria's stomach had tightened, instinct screaming that this meant something. "I should call her."
"Probably." Sienna checked her watch. "I've got to run. Emergency consult in five. But seriously, Aria. Whatever's making you smile like that? Don't let it go."
After Sienna left, Aria sat with her cooling coffee, thinking about her aunt. About the photograph. About the funeral and Isabetta's words. About questions she'd never thought to ask.
She should call. Should reach out. Should ask what Isabetta wanted.
A code blue announcement echoed through the cafeteria, and Aria's training took over. She ran.
The phone call to Isabetta got pushed aside, forgotten in the chaos of saving a life.
Tuesday passed in a blur of meetings and surgeries and administrative nonsense that made Aria want to scream. But underneath it all ran a constant awareness that tomorrow was Wednesday. Tomorrow she'd see Dante again. Tomorrow there would be coffee and conversation and that way he had to look at her like she was the only person in the room.
She caught herself checking the time repeatedly. Twenty-four hours until the appointment. Twenty hours. Sixteen.
Her phone buzzed during afternoon rounds. Dante: Question: do you prefer early morning surgery or late afternoon?
She typed back: Early morning. The brain is the sharpest. Why?
Just learning what makes you tick.
Another message arrived before she could respond: “See you tomorrow, dottoressa.”
Aria smiled at her phone like an idiot, caught herself, shoved the device back in her pocket.
Tomorrow. Just hours away now.
Tuesday night, eleven o'clock. Aria stood in her bathroom brushing her teeth, trying not to think about how much she was looking forward to Wednesday morning, when her phone rang.
Unknown number.
She almost didn't answer. But something, instinct maybe, made her pick up.
"Hello?"
"Aria, cara. It's Aunt Isabetta."
The voice was exactly as Aria remembered. Cool, precise, with an accent that spoke of old Rome rather than the modern city. Her stomach tightened instinctively.
"Aunt Isabetta. Hi." Aria's reflection stared back at her from the mirror, toothbrush frozen halfway to her mouth. "I was just thinking about you. Sienna mentioned you called her."
"Did she? How interesting." A pause weighted with significance. "I need to see you, cara . Soon. There are things we need to discuss."
Aria set down the toothbrush, gripped the edge of the sink. "What things?"
"Not over the phone. Can you come to my apartment this weekend? Saturday lunch?"
"I'm working Saturday—" Aria started, already mentally reviewing her surgical schedule.
"Sunday, then." Isabetta's voice left no room for negotiation. "It's important, Aria. About your mother."
The bathroom tilted. Aria's knuckles went white on the porcelain. "What about her?"
"Sunday. I'll text you the address. One o'clock." A pause, then: "Don't tell your father we're meeting."
"Why not?" But even as she asked, Aria knew the answer would be something she didn't want to hear.
"Because some things are better discussed between families. Just us. Promise me you'll come."
Aria's throat was tight, dry. "I... okay. I promise."
"Good girl. And Aria?" Isabetta's voice dropped lower, took on an edge that made Aria's skin prickle with warning. "Be careful who you trust. Not everyone is who they seem."
The line went dead.
Aria stood in her bathroom, phone still pressed to her ear, heartbeat thundering in her temples. Don't tell your father. Not everyone is who they seem. About your mother.
The phrases echoed, ominous and unclear.
Her phone buzzed in her palm, making her jump. She looked down at the screen.
Text from Dante: Sleep well. Tomorrow's just hours away.
Aria stared at the two messages. Isabetta's cryptic warning. Dante's simple sweetness. Two people telling her to be careful, both holding secrets she couldn't decipher.
She remembered the photograph from the album. Isabetta's calculating eyes. Remembered her aunt's voice at the funeral: “Your mother deserved better than lies.”
What lies? About the accident? About Bruno? About something else entirely?
Aria typed back to Dante: You too. See you tomorrow.
Then she stood there in her silent bathroom, caught between anticipation for Wednesday morning and dread about Sunday afternoon, feeling like she was standing on the edge of something vast and dark, something that would swallow her whole if she took one wrong step.
She didn't sleep well that night.
She lay in bed staring at the ceiling, replaying Isabetta's words, remembering her mother's face in those photographs, thinking about the way Dante had looked when he talked about his sister, wondering how all these pieces connected into a pattern she couldn't yet see.
When dawn finally came, she was exhausted but wired.
Wednesday morning. Time to see Dante. Time to pretend everything was normal when she could feel fault lines forming beneath her feet.
She got out of bed, went through her morning routine on autopilot, tried to ignore the tremor in her fingers as she buttoned her blouse.
Today was another appointment followed by coffee. Nothing extraordinary.
Except it felt like everything had changed overnight. Like she'd crossed some invisible threshold and couldn't find her way back to the person she'd been a week ago.
Miles away, in an apartment in the EUR district, Isabetta Romano stood before a corkboard that covered one entire wall. Photographs. Documents. News clippings. Red string connecting various points in a web only she could fully comprehend.
At the center of it all, two photographs side by side: Dante Moretti and Bruno Salvini.
Isabetta picked up her phone, dialed a number from memory.
When someone answered, she said simply: "It's time. The girl is ready. Sunday, we begin."
She ended the call, turned back to the board, and smiled. A cold expression. Calculating. The smile of someone who'd been patient for fifteen years and was finally about to get what she wanted.
Justice. Truth. Revenge.
Aria didn't know it yet, but her carefully constructed life was about to shatter into pieces.
And Isabetta would be there to help pick them up.
Or to grind them into dust.
It all depended on which side the girl chose.