Chapter 62 Awareness

Chapter 62 Awareness
Dante’s POV

The house is louder than usual when we return. Not because anything has changed, but because my attention refuses to settle the way it normally does. 

Even routine sounds feel louder than they should; footsteps in the corridor, glass being placed on counters, distant voices still carrying the leftover energy from the pool. I move through it without stopping.

People greet me. I do not respond beyond what is necessary.

I have never needed noise to think, but today the silence in my head is not useful either. It is filled with fragments I did not ask for, pieces of moments that should not be occupying space they have no right to occupy.

Water. Movement.

Lucia stepped out of the pool, brushing wet hair from her face without noticing she was being watched. Nico stood beside her. He was close. 

Really close.

But not too close that it was innapropriate. It wasn’t anything i could point to and call a problem.

That is the issue. Nothing was wrong. Which means nothing can be corrected.

I enter my study and shut the door behind me harder than necessary.

The sound is sharp in the room. It does not help.

I stand there for a moment without moving, hand still resting on the door handle, before I finally exhale and loosen my grip.

Control first. Always control first.

I walk to the desk, but I don’t sit immediately. Instead, I look at the documents Enzo left earlier, reports about the explosion, updated movement routes, internal checks that should normally take my full attention.

They do not.

My eyes move across the page and stop without meaning to. Then move back. Then stop again.

Finally, I push the papers aside. The silence that follows is worse. Because it gives space. Space for things I would prefer not to examine.

I lean back slightly against the edge of the desk and exhale through my nose.

An image of  Lucia laughing appeared behind my eyelids

Not for show. Not polite. Real.

I had not heard it in that way before. Not once.

Which should not matter. It does not matter. It cannot matter.

And yet my mind repeats it anyway, not as sound but as pattern, as something that happened and therefore now exists in my awareness whether I approve of it or not.

Then Nico. That part is simpler. History is always simpler.

I know what he is. I know what he was trained to be. I know what he is capable of. None of that is new.

What is new is the way he moves around her without hesitation, as though there are distances that do not need to be measured anymore. As though time never broke anything between them.

My jaw tightens slightly before I can stop it.

I straighten immediately. The reaction is unnecessary.

I correct it. But it returns anyway, quieter this time, more persistent than before.

I hear the knock only after a second attempt.

“Enter.”

The door opens. Antonio steps in first, followed by Enzo.

They pause briefly when they see me standing instead of seated.

Neither comments. They have learned better.

“We need confirmation on the western route adjustments,” Antonio says, holding a file.

I nod once. “Speak.”

They begin. I listen. At least, I try to.

But even as Antonio explains the updated movements and Enzo adds corrections where needed, my attention continues to fracture in small, controlled interruptions.

A pattern I do not like.

A pattern I did not authorize.

“—and if we move the shipment two hours earlier, it avoids overlap with Casteelo’s known patrol shifts,” Enzo finishes.

I register the information. I respond appropriately.

“Approved.”

Antonio hesitates slightly before speaking again.

“There is something else.”

My gaze lifts. He continues more carefully.

“Lucia suggested a vulnerability in the internal logistics chain earlier. We checked it. She is correct.”

Silence. I don’t react immediately.

Instead, I process it the way I would any other piece of information.

Lucia suggested. Correct. Useful. Efficient.

My voice remains even. “Good.”

Enzo shifts slightly. “She wants to be included in the next planning session.”

That draws a pause. Not from surprise. From consideration.

Because inclusion is not something I give lightly, not in matters like this. Not because of status. Because access creates exposure.

Antonio watches me carefully. Enzo does as well. They are waiting for refusal. I should give it. It would be logical.

Instead, something else forms before I decide on it. Not agreement. Not refusal.

Something in between that I do not immediately name.

“I will decide after reviewing today’s outcome,” I say finally.

A safe answer. They accept it.

We wrap up on the rest and theyleave shortly after.

The door closes again. Silence returns. I walk back to the desk slowly and sit.

For a moment, I simply remain still then I reach for the folder Antonio left and open it.

The pages are structured and clear.

But I still see the pool.

I still see Nico standing too close for reasons I cannot justify as irrelevant.

And I still see Lucia’s face when she looked away from him, not uncomfortable, not afraid, simply familiar in a way that does not belong in the present tense.

My pen stops moving. I set it down.

This is unnecessary. All of it.

A simple conclusion.

Yet I do not dismiss it the way I usually would.

Instead, I find myself considering something far more irritating.

Not Nico. Not Casteelo.

Not even the threat of exposure or internal instability.

Lucia.

And the fact that today, without intention I watched her more than I watched anything else.

The realization does not arrive dramatically.

It does not demand attention.

It simply settles, like something that has been present for a while and is only now being acknowledged.

I lean back slightly in my chair. Aware, now, in a way I would prefer not to be.

Because I know what this is becoming. And I do not like processes I cannot interrupt.

Not when they start forming on their own. 

Especially not when they begin to involve my wife.