Chapter Two Hundred and Ten

Alicia’s POV

Three months into married life and I found myself sitting in the garden, watching Lia sleep in her bassinet beside me, feeling something I couldn’t quite name.

Not unhappiness. I could never call it that. But there was a restlessness gnawing at me, a quiet dissatisfaction that had been growing for weeks and that I couldn’t seem to shake no matter how many times I told myself I had everything I’d ever wanted.

And I did have everything. A husband who loved me so completely it sometimes took my breath away. A daughter who was perfect in every possible way. A family who had welcomed us with open arms. Safety and security and peace after years of having none of those things.

So why did I feel like something was missing?

Lia stirred in her sleep, making the tiny sighing sound that meant she’d be awake soon. She was four months old now, growing so fast I could hardly believe it. This morning she’d smiled at me for the first time. Not the reflexive smiles she’d made before, the ones the pediatrician said were just gas or random muscle movements. This had been a real smile, her eyes focusing on my face, her mouth curving up as if she recognized me and was happy to see me.

I’d cried. Called Malachi immediately even though he’d been in the middle of a video conference with Maurice about the security consulting business he was building. Made him come see, needed him to witness this moment with me.

He’d dropped everything. Come running. Leaned over the bassinet and made silly faces until Lia looked at him and smiled again, that same beautiful recognition lighting up her tiny features.

"She smiled at me," he’d said, his voice filled with such wonder it made my heart ache. He’d turned to me with tears in his eyes, this man who’d spent most of his life being hard and cold, and added, "Our daughter smiled at me. She knows who I am."

"She’s brilliant," I’d told him. 𝐟𝚛𝕖𝚎𝕨𝗲𝐛𝚗𝐨𝐯𝐞𝕝.𝐜𝗼𝗺

"Obviously," he’d agreed, and we’d both stood there like idiots, crying over a smile that every four-month-old baby eventually gave their parents.

But it had felt monumental. Like proof that we were doing something right, that despite everything we’d been through and everything we’d done, we were good parents to this tiny person we’d created.

Now, hours later, I was alone with my thoughts again and that restlessness had returned, stronger than before.

"You look troubled, cara," Signora Moretti said, and I looked up to find her standing at the edge of the garden path, a tray of tea in her hands and that knowing expression on her face that she wore whenever she’d decided I needed to talk about something.

"I’m not troubled," I said, then paused because that wasn’t quite true. "Or maybe I am. I don’t know. I’m just thinking."

She settled into the chair beside me, poured two cups of tea with the kind of practiced grace that spoke of decades of hosting and caring for people. The afternoon sun caught the silver in her dark hair, and I was struck again by how much I looked like her. Like my mother. Like I belonged to this family in ways I’d never belonged anywhere before.

"Thinking about what?" she asked gently, handing me a cup of the floral tea she knew I preferred.

I cradled the warm porcelain between my hands, letting the heat seep into my palms while I tried to find the right words. "About what comes next, I suppose. I’m a wife now. A mother. Those are good things, important things that I’m grateful for every single day. But is that all I am? Is that all I’m meant to be?"

"What do you want to be?"

The question hung in the air between us, simple and profound all at once. "I don’t know. Something more. Something meaningful beyond these walls and this life, as beautiful as it is. I love Lia more than anything, and I love Malachi, and I love this family. But I keep feeling like there’s something else I should be doing. Like I’m supposed to contribute something to the world beyond just existing in this bubble we’ve created."

Signora Moretti nodded slowly, her eyes distant with memory. "Your mother felt the same way after you were born. She loved being a mother, talked about it constantly, how you were the best thing that had ever happened to her. But she also wanted purpose beyond caring for you. She wanted to contribute, to make a difference, to use her experiences for something meaningful."

I leaned forward, hungry for any scrap of information about the mother I’d lost so long ago. "What did she do?"

"She volunteered at women’s shelters in the city. Spent hours there whenever she could, helping women who’d escaped abusive situations. She understood what they were going through better than most people could, understood the fear and the shame and the difficulty of starting over with nothing. Used her own experience to help them heal, to show them that life could be different, could be better."

The words settled over me like a revelation, like my mother reaching across the years to show me exactly what I needed to do. "I could do that. I could help women escape situations like the one I was in with Travis. Women who think they have no options, no way out, no hope for anything better."

"You could," Signora Moretti agreed, reaching over to squeeze my hand with a warmth that made tears prick at my eyes. "And you should. You have resources now that your mother never had. Money and connections and the weight of two powerful family names behind you. The Moretti name and the Blackwood name both. Use them. Take something terrible that happened to you and make it into something beautiful that helps others."

"Would the family support it? Both families?"

"The family would be honored to support it. You’d be carrying on your mother’s legacy while creating your own. What could be more fitting than that?"

The idea took root in my mind immediately, growing and expanding until I could see it clearly. A foundation. Resources for women who needed to escape. Safe houses and legal help and job training and therapy. Everything I’d wished I’d had when I was trapped and desperate and convinced there was no way out.

By the time Malachi came home that evening, I’d already started planning. Made lists and phone calls and research. Lia was fed and content in her swing, watching the mobile above her with intense concentration, and I was pacing the living room with my notebook, too excited to sit still.

"I want to start a foundation," I told him the moment he walked through the door, before he’d even had a chance to set down his briefcase or kiss me hello.

He stopped, his hand still on the doorknob, his dark eyes finding mine across the room. "What kind of foundation?"