Chapter 16 – Almeria
There’s something different about Gaspare tonight.
It’s not his silence—he’s always been the quiet, calculating type. It’s not even the tired slump of his shoulders.
It’s the way he won’t meet my eyes.
He stands by the window of the sitting room, hands shoved into his pockets, staring out into the darkness like he's waiting for a storm to roll in.
I watch him for a while, pretending to read the book in my lap.
Pretending not to notice the way his mouth tightens every few seconds, or the way his jaw ticks like he’s grinding words between his teeth.
Finally, I can't take it anymore.
I set the book down and rise to my feet.
"Are you going to tell me what's wrong," I say softly, "or do I have to guess?"
He stiffens.
For a long moment, he doesn’t say anything.
Just stands there, his back still to me, the muscles in his shoulders tight beneath the fabric of his shirt.
Then he lets out a low, almost weary breath.
"Nothing’s wrong," he says finally, his voice rough. "I’m just... stressed."
I keep my hands folded neatly in my lap, pretending to be calm, even as irritation prickles under my skin.
"Stressed," I echo, lifting an eyebrow.
He still won’t look at me.
I tap my fingers slowly against the armrest.
"Gaspare," I say, my voice sharper now, cutting through the heavy air between us. "Do I look like a kid to you?"
That gets his attention.
He turns slightly, eyes narrowing.
"What?"
"Do I look like a child?" I repeat, keeping my tone measured. "Someone who can't tell when something’s wrong?"
He presses his lips together, jaw flexing as if he’s biting back words.
"You don’t have to sugarcoat it," I continue quietly. "Not with me. Not anymore."
His shoulders sag, the fight bleeding out of him inch by inch.
"I’m not trying to lie to you," he says finally, voice raw. "I just... I don't want you carrying this weight too."
For a second, I think he won't answer at all.
Then he sighs and turns, leaning his back against the window frame, arms folded across his chest.
"I'm working on it," he says finally. "The Stark situation."
Something cold slides down my spine at the mention of that name.
If I’d ever heard that name before now, perhaps I wouldn’t feel the way it makes me feel now.
But knowing now that that is the name of the man who stole my innocence, makes my heart beat two times faster whenever I hear or think about the name.
I grip the arm of the chair beside me for balance.
Gaspare’s eyes sharpen, noticing.
"He's harder to lure out than we thought," he says. "He's paranoid. Careful. One wrong move and he might realize we're onto him."
I swallow hard.
"So you don’t want him to know you know?"
He nods grimly. "I don’t even want him to know I’m the one sending for him. It’s best if he thinks I’m someone else who’s noticed his prowess. He left the syndicate – literally disappeared. And I didn’t know where he was for a year. To be fair, I never bothered to check. I figured wherever he was wasn’t going to be of any harm to me since I trusted him so much. But if word gets out now that I’m searching for him, he’ll probably either vanish again or do something crazy. I need him desperate. Sloppy."
I close my eyes for a moment, absorbing that.
The idea that Stark is still out there, breathing the same air as me, sends a shudder through my body.
But I force myself to stay upright. To stay strong.
"What if he finds out anyway?" I whisper.
"He won't," Gaspare says firmly. "I'm making sure of it. I won't let him slip through my fingers."
I open my eyes to find him watching me intently, his jaw clenched.
"I promised you justice," he says. "And I don’t break my promises."
But justice doesn’t erase the memories.
The weight of it crashes down on me, pulling me under.
The alleyway.
The hands that grabbed me.
The sharp pain.
The choking fear.
I wrap my arms around myself instinctively, shivering.
Gaspare notices instantly.
He crosses the room in two long strides, dropping to his knees in front of me.
"Talk to me, angel," he murmurs. "Don’t keep it bottled up."
I don’t know where to start.
I don’t know if I can.
But the words spill out anyway, tumbling from my lips before I can stop them.
"I was so scared that night," I whisper.
Gaspare reaches up, brushing my hair back from my face with a tenderness that breaks something inside me.
"I thought it was a punishment," I continue. "For being stupid. For thinking you could ever look at me and see more than my last name."
His face contorts like he’s been stabbed.
"I didn't realize," I say, voice trembling, "how dangerous hope could be until it was ripped away."
He presses his forehead to my hands, breathing deeply.
"And after," I go on, my throat tightening, "I ran. I didn’t even think. If you ask me, I don’t even know why I ran. I just did. I barely had enough money to get out of the city. I just thought running was better than my father finding out that I’d been defiled."
I bite my lip hard enough to taste blood.
"I spent the first week sleeping in bus stations. Hiding. Terrified someone would find me. Drag me back to serve some kind of punishment for letting myself be degraded that way."
Gaspare looks up, anguish in his eyes.
“You didn’t let yourself be degraded, Almeria,” he corrects.
I let out a small laugh.
“You clearly don’t know how the life of a mafia daughter works. You’re to be kept until your father or guardian deems it fit to be joined in marriage to whoever they want to form some sort of alliance with. If my father had found out I wasn’t a virgin anymore, no matter how I lost it, I would have been punished. Badly. I would have been the laughing stock of the syndicate.”
“So running saved you.”
"In a way, yes. I am glad I ran. Imagine being already punished and finding out I was nineteen and pregnant. Luca wouldn’t have stood a chance at a normal childhood," I whisper. "When I ran, I had no one. Nothing in particular that I was running to. And I didn’t even know if I wanted to keep the baby. Not because I didn’t love him—because I was so damn scared I would ruin him before he even had a chance to live."
A tear slides down my cheek.
Gaspare catches it with his thumb, shaking his head fiercely.
"You didn’t ruin him," he says hoarsely. "You saved him. You saved yourself."
I shake my head. "I worked in diners for tips. I lived in shelters. I slept with a knife under my pillow every night. I thought if I kept moving, if I never stayed too long, maybe the ghosts would forget about me."
He cups my face, his thumb stroking over my cheekbone.
"You may have been nineteen, but you were still just a kid," he says. "A scared kid trying to survive. And you did. You did everything right."
The words crack something open inside me.
For the first time, I let myself believe it might be true.
The tension between us changes, softens, thickens.
Gaspare leans in, pressing his forehead against mine.
"I’m sorry," he whispers. "I’m so fucking sorry, Almeria."
I squeeze my eyes shut, breathing him in.
The guilt radiating off him is almost tangible.
But so is the fierce, burning love.
"I know you are," I whisper back.
And I do.
I believe it more than ever now, down to my bones.
Because the man holding me now isn’t the boy who turned his back on me.
He’s the man who would burn the world down to protect me.
I don’t know how long we stay like that—his forehead pressed to mine, my hands tangled in his shirt like he’s the only anchor keeping me from floating away.
But slowly, a quiet strength builds inside me.
A decision.
I pull back just enough to meet his eyes.
"I’m tired of running," I tell him, my voice rough with tears. "I’m tired of being afraid of shadows. Of letting what he did define me."
Gaspare's hands tighten around me, his grip grounding.
"I want to face it," I say, voice trembling but sure. "Whatever comes. I want to face it."
Tears blur my vision, hot and relentless.
But I don't look away.
Gaspare watches me like I’m something precious. Like I’m something holy.
"You don't have to do it alone," he says fiercely. "You’ll never have to do anything alone again."
I choke on a sob and fall against his chest.
He catches me easily, wrapping his arms around me, holding me like he’ll never let go.
"You’re safe," he whispers into my hair. "With me. Always."
I feel the words wrap around my broken pieces, stitching them together slowly, gently.
"You’ll never have to fear anyone again, Almeria," he murmurs, pressing a kiss to the crown of my head. "Not while I’m breathing."
I sob into his chest, letting it all out—the fear, the anger, the grief, the relief.
And for the first time since that night so many years ago, I believe it.
I believe him.
I believe us.
The soft patter of small feet on the marble floor draws our attention.
I lift my head from Gaspare’s chest, hastily swiping at the tears on my cheeks.
Luca stands in the doorway, barefoot in his little pajama set, clutching his stuffed tiger against his chest. His hair is tousled from sleep, and there’s a crease on his cheek where he must have pressed it into the pillow.
But it’s his eyes that gut me.
They’re wide, curious and worried.
At least there’s no more fear in them.
“Mama?” he says softly, taking a tentative step into the room. “Why are you crying?”
Gaspare releases me gently and rises to his feet, crossing the room toward Luca in a few strides.
I stay where I am, overwhelmed, trying to steady my breathing.
Gaspare crouches in front of Luca, bringing himself down to his level.
“Hey, buddy,” he says, his voice calm, warm. “It’s okay. Your mama’s not hurt.”
Luca’s lip wobbles. “But she’s sad?”
Gaspare smiles gently and places a hand on Luca’s small shoulder. “She’s not sad because of anything bad happening right now, okay? She’s just remembering something that hurt a long time ago.”
Luca frowns, clutching his tiger tighter.
“What’s that?”
Gaspare turns to give me a quick glance and I stare back at him blankly.
Someday, the story of Luca’s birth will come out and he’ll hear it. But not like this. Definitely not now.
Gaspare seems to hear the words I’m not saying.
Because he turns to Luca and pulls him in closer.
“It’s in the past, kiddo. And she’s okay now,” he tells Luca. “So, you know what we’re going to do? We’re going to make sure she’s always okay. You and me, together.”
Luca’s frown deepens, and for a moment I think he’s going to cry too.
But then he squares his little shoulders, his chin jutting out stubbornly.
“Like superheroes?” he asks with all seriousness.
Gaspare chuckles, a low, rough sound that vibrates through the room and warms something inside me.
“Exactly. Just like superheroes,” he says.
Luca beams.
Gaspare ruffles his hair. “And you’re the strongest one of all.”
Luca straightens proudly at that, a tiny, fierce warrior in his Batman pajamas.
I bite back a tear that threatens to fall again—but this time it’s not from sadness.
It’s from something deeper.
Something sweeter.
Hope.
Real, solid hope, for the first time in years.
I sit there quietly, my heart lodged somewhere high in my throat, watching the two of them interact.
Gaspare, this man who once terrified me, crouched low with his hand on my son's tiny shoulder, speaking in soft promises.
And Luca, who’s already looking up at him with a kind of wide-eyed belief children reserve only for their greatest heroes.
For so long, it had just been me and Luca against the world.
Every scraped knee.
Every night terror.
Every broken car engine on a rainy road.
Every thought of the next town or place that we could call home.
I carried it all alone.
Because there was no one else.
Because I thought trusting someone again would kill me faster than heartbreak ever could.
But now…
Watching Gaspare — seeing the way he smiles at Luca, how he reassures him without a hint of impatience or detachment — I realize something startling.
Maybe I don’t have to carry it all anymore.
Maybe, for the first time since I was a terrified nineteen-year-old girl running into the unknown, I’m not alone.
Maybe I have someone strong enough to share the weight with me.
Even after Stark is found. Even after the past is laid to rest.
Even after the wars end.
Gaspare will be here.
With me.
With us.
Always.
Gaspare rises from his crouch and scoops Luca into his arms effortlessly, lifting him high enough that Luca squeals in surprise before giggling.
The sound cracks my chest open even wider.
Gaspare carries him over to me.
“She’s okay,” he tells Luca again, setting him gently down at my side. “She’s just tired. And you, little warrior, should be sleeping too.”
Luca nods solemnly, then looks up at me with those earnest brown eyes.
“Are you really okay, Mama?”
I brush his hair back and smile.
“A little sad,” I say honestly. “But better now. Because you’re here. And because Gaspare’s here too.”
Luca grins and climbs into my lap, curling against me like he used to when he was a baby.
Gaspare kneels again, one hand resting on my knee.
He leans in close enough that only I can hear his next words:
“No more loneliness, Almeria. No more fighting alone. I swear it.”
I close my eyes, breathing him in, believing him.
It feels like something more than a pretty promise.
It feels like the start of a real future.
A future where I can stop looking over my shoulder.
One where Luca can grow up laughing more than crying.
And where love can grow without fear strangling it at the root.
I don’t have to be strong all the time anymore.
I don’t have to outrun the dark alone.
I have them now.
I have him.
And maybe, just maybe, it’s enough.