“Who came here?” he asked, his voice calm, but there was something beneath it, something controlled, like a storm waiting behind a closed door.
The woman hesitated, glancing at Emma, then back at him, weighing her words carefully, because the wrong sentence could bring consequences she couldn’t handle.
“They said we owed money,” she whispered, her fingers gripping the thin blanket tightly, “but we never borrowed anything from them.”
Rocco’s jaw tightened slightly, a subtle reaction, but enough to show something inside him had shifted.
“Did you recognize them?” he asked.
She nodded slowly, her eyes dropping to the floor, “One of them… he said your name, like it gave him permission.”
