Chapter 6 Safe Place

Elena’s face drained of color for half a second before her expression hardened into a sharp, defensive glare.

"What are you doing creeping around my doorway?" She shoved her phone into her back pocket, taking a step toward me, her posture tight. "I’m talking to a loan officer about my university fees. Not everything in this house revolves around your dramatic breakdown, Chiara."

I didn't blink. I stepped into her doorway, closing the distance until I was standing inches from her, forcing her to tilt her head up.

"Loan officers don't ask if I'm at home at midnight, Elena," I said softly, my voice devoid of heat. "And they don't pay you for watching where I drive."

Panic flickered across her eyes, fast and raw, but she swallowed it down. "You’re losing your mind. The stress is making you paranoid. Get out of my room."

I held her gaze for three long seconds, letting the silence heavy up between us, before turning on my heel and walking back down the hall. I didn't yell. I didn't demand an answer. Leaving her guessing exactly how much I knew was far more dangerous for whatever game she was playing.

In my room, I pulled a small leather notebook from my gym bag. With a thick blue pen, I wrote a quick, legible note across the top page: Dr. Vane – Private Rehabilitation Consultation, Clinica San Siro, 10:30 AM. I tore the paper out, folded it once, and dropped it onto my desk right beside my laptop close enough to look like a forgotten reminder.

Ten minutes later, the sharp double-tap of a car horn sounded from the courtyard three floors below.

I grabbed my two bags, walked past my mother without a word, and headed down the stairwell. Parked near the dumpster was a sleek dark sedan. The driver’s window rolled down, revealing Rodriguez, wearing dark sunglasses despite the dim morning light, a quiet cigillo burning between his fingers.

"You look like hell, capitana," Rodriguez said, pushing the passenger door open from the inside.

I threw my bags into the back seat and climbed in. "Get me out of this neighborhood."

He pulled out of the concrete courtyard, his eyes cutting to the rearview mirror. "I found a place for you. Ten minutes from Marco’s gate on Lake Como. A small ground-floor studio, private entrance, gated parking. Unfurnished except for a bed and a table, but it’s clean and nobody knows the address except me."

"How much?"

"Two hundred a month below market," Rodriguez replied, flicking ash out the window. "The landlord is an old volleyball fanatic who remembers your twenty-point comeback against Igor Novara in '22. Consider it a loyalty discount."

"I don't need charity, Rodriguez."

"It’s not charity, it’s logistics," he snapped back, his voice dropping into a stern tone. "You can't drive two hours a day from Milan while Marco Bellini tears your muscles apart and rebuilds them. You need rest, and you need to keep your head clear of that apartment."

I leaned my head against the cold glass of the passenger window, watching the gray industrial outskirts of Milan blur past. He was right. The air in my mother’s house was a slow poison.

By 5:45 AM the following morning, I was already inside Marco’s complex.

The side iron door leading to the lake garden was deadbolted shut today. I checked the handle myself before stepping onto the main floor.

Marco was waiting near the high-speed camera rig. He didn't ask where I slept or why I had heavy tired circles beneath my eyes. He simply pointed toward the force-plates with a chalk marker.

"Two-inch tape lines," Marco said, his voice ringing crisp against the high ceilings. "You aren't just drop-landing today. You’re taking a toss, hitting a full approach, jumping off two feet, and landing inside a six-inch target box without letting your knee cave inward."

I stepped onto the court, my quads still heavy from yesterday’s session. "You’re adding full vertical force already?"

"Your joint cleared the diagnostic load tests twenty-two hours ago," Marco said, adjusting the camera angle on his tripod. "The structural integrity of your knee is fine. It’s your mind that’s dragging its feet. Show me a four-step approach."

I backed up to the baseline, bounced a stray ball twice, and set my footing. I took two rapid steps, planted my heels on the parquet, and drove my arms backward to lift off.

The moment my feet left the floor, my brain glitched. The phantom terror flashed through my nerves the memory of my foot catching Bianca's shoe, the sickening pop, the roar of the crowd turning into distorted noise.

I hit the peak of my jump, came down off-balance, and landed two feet wide of the chalk lines, my left ankle turning awkwardly as I absorbed the weight.

"Wrong," Marco said flatly, not even looking up from his tablet screen. "Your hip opened up before your toes touched the ground. You were already preparing to fall before you even reached the apex of your jump."

"I missed the mark by three inches," I wheezed, wiping sweat off my collarbone.

"You missed it because you were looking at the floor," Marco stepped onto the court, grabbing a heavy leather weight ball from the rack. He walked straight up to me, stopping six inches away. "When you're at the net against a three-woman block, you don't look at where your feet are going to land. You trust your body to handle the earth while your eyes stay on the ball."

He held the leather ball out in front of my chest. "Hold it above your head. Deep squat. Five reps."

I grabbed the heavy ball, locked my arms straight up, and lowered myself down until my thighs were parallel to the floor. My left knee trembled, the scar tissue pulling tight like a steel wire.

"Again," Marco ordered, standing over me, his presence heavy, uncompromising, and absolutely grounded. "Do not protect it. Force the joint to do the work."

I drove up through my heels, locked my glutes, and went down again. One. Two. Three. Four. Five.

On the fifth rep, I pushed back up, my lungs burning, and tossed the ball back to him.

"Now do the approach," Marco said, stepping back to the camera line. "And if you look down at the floor before you land, we restart from the beginning."

I wiped my palms on my shorts, took a deep, ragged breath, and launched into the four-step approach. Left, right, plant, lift. I didn't look at the chalk. I locked my eyes straight ahead at the black boundary line on the wall. I hit the apex, floated for a fraction of a second, and brought my weight down.

Thud.

Both soles struck the wood together. Right inside the chalk square. My knees bent cleanly, absorbing the impact without a single millimeter of lateral tilt.

The green light on the wall monitor beeped instantly.

I stood up straight, my heart pounding in my throat, staring at the screen.

"Better," Marco said quietly, marking something down on his tablet. "Take five minutes."

I walked over to the bench, my legs shaking from pure nervous exhaustion, and unzipped my bag to reach for my water bottle. My personal phone screen was lit up with a single text message from Rodriguez.

It contained a photo taken from inside a parked car across the street from Clinica San Siro in central Milan.

The image showed a silver luxury sedan idling directly outside the clinic's private entrance. The driver’s side window was down, revealing a sharp, unmistakable profile Lorenzo’s senior executive assistant, holding a folder, staring intently at the clinic doors, waiting for someone who was never going to show up.

Underneath the photo, Rodriguez had written three words:

He's here. 10:30 sharp.

A slow, icy calm washed over me. I stared at the image on the screen, my chest rising and falling in steady, controlled beats.

I looked up across the gym floor at Marco, then back at the phone screen.

The paper note on my desk was the only place that name and time had ever existed. Elena hadn't just been talking to a friend. She was directly on Lorenzo's payroll.