Part 2: “Because he threw an apple at you.”
“I noticed.”
Nico threw a banana next. It hit Serena’s shoulder and left a pale smear on her cheap blazer.
She brushed it off and kept slicing strawberries.
“Why aren’t you yelling?” Alessandro whispered.
“Because yelling means I care about the game,” Serena said quietly. “Right now I care about dinner. You can throw things. You can stand on furniture. You can turn this kitchen into a crime scene. It doesn’t change what I’m doing.”
The water began to boil.
Marco climbed onto the counter and blocked the pantry.
“You can’t get the pasta.”
Serena looked up at him.
For one second, she did not see a monster.
She saw a little boy with his father’s jaw and his dead mother’s ghost in his eyes. A child who had learned that if he broke people first, they could not leave him later.
“You’re right,” she said.
Then she went back to slicing apples.
Marco frowned.
The confusion spread.
Finally, he shifted an inch.
Serena slipped past him, opened the pantry, and took down the spaghetti.
Behind her, Victor watched without moving.
At 7:23 p.m., the kitchen was still a disaster, but the war had changed.
The boys had stopped attacking. Now they were watching.
Tommy, the silent one, rose from his corner and came closer, step by careful step.
Serena did not look directly at him.
“The pattern is interesting,” she said while whisking eggs and cream. “Three loud ones create distraction. One quiet one watches what works.”
Tommy stopped.
“They think I’m shy,” he whispered.
“I don’t think you’re shy.”
His eyes lifted.
“Shy means scared. You’re not scared. You’re careful.”
He came one step closer.
“What are you making?”
“Carbonara.”
He swallowed.
“Mama used to make that.”
The word mama settled over the kitchen like snow.
Serena’s hands paused for only a breath.
“My mother made it too,” she said. “She taught me the secret.”
“What secret?”
“You can’t rush it. If you rush, the eggs scramble. If you’re patient, they turn into silk.”
She drained the pasta, steam rising between them.
“Want to help?”
Tommy glanced at his brothers.
“They’ll say I’m a traitor.”
“Maybe,” Serena said. “Or maybe they’re waiting to see if it’s safe.”
She held out the wooden spoon.
Tommy took it.
When she poured the hot pasta into the egg mixture, he stirred with intense concentration. Serena added crisp pancetta, parmesan, black pepper, and a touch of garlic. The smell filled the kitchen—warm, rich, comforting.
Home, if home had a scent.
“That’s perfect,” Serena said.
Tommy looked up like no one had ever told him that before.
Marco drifted closer.
“What’s he doing?”
“Cooking.”
Serena pulled plates from the cabinet. Real plates, not plastic.
“Alessandro, forks. Marco, napkins. Nico, water glasses.”
She gave the instructions as if obedience were normal.
Somehow, impossibly, they obeyed.
Alessandro brought forks. Marco found napkins with theatrical annoyance. Nico filled the glasses too high, waiting for a reaction.
Serena gave him none.