Chapter Thirty-eight #2
The first person I faced in that ring was Andres. I let him hit me. Hard. Over and over. I didn’t fight back, didn’t block. I deserved it, deserved to be punished for being a clueless teenager while my father was dying.
Andres caught on after a while. He stopped mid-swing, just looking at me like he could see the break inside me. That night, we stopped being just strangers. That night, he became my brother.
“He seems like he was a good man,” Serena says, her voice soft, eyes still glassy. “I wish I could’ve met him. You look so much alike… it’s like I’m looking at you, just… older.”
A dark thought creeps in, cold and heavy, maybe one day I’ll be here too. A stone with my name on it. Another Moretti buried beside him.
“He was a good man,” I say simply, and the words feel like both truth and loss pressed into my chest.
We stay there for a while longer, and I tell her more, how he taught me to drive on the back roads outside Florence, his hand steady on my shoulder when I stalled the engine.
How he taught me to fight, drilling into me the importance of protecting myself, protecting family.
The endless chess games where he crushed me, the summer trips where he’d convince me to put the phone away and just live.
Serena listens quietly, not interrupting, her gaze fixed on me like each word matters.
“He would’ve adored you, Serena,” I tell her, and I mean it. Different life, different circumstances, he would have loved her. “I adore you.” My chest aches, my ears ring.
She steps forward and wraps her arms around me, holding me like she could keep the pieces together.
I hear her sniff, and I let myself feel the pain, really feel it.
Ten years I’ve avoided this grave. Ten years of pretending it wasn’t real.
I went to his funeral drunk, half-aware of where I even was.
This is different. This is final. He’s not coming back.
Yesterday, when I told her I loved her, I meant it. Couldn’t stop it. And now here I am, at my father’s grave, holding the woman I love whose father might have put him here. Life’s a sick joke.
We prepare to leave, but before I go, I step close to the stone. My voice is low, meant for him alone. “I’ll take care of them.” I will make them pay. I don’t have the proof yet, but I know. I fucking know. Serena glances at me, confused, but she doesn’t ask.
I take her hand and we walk out. The drive back is quiet. The kind of silence that fills every space between two people but doesn’t push them apart. Tomorrow, we fly back to New York.
When we step into the house, the smell of fresh dough and oregano hits me.
My mother’s in the kitchen, rolling out pizza dough.
Her eyes are red, she knows exactly where we’ve been.
She comes to hug Serena, tells her to sit, but Serena insists on helping set the table.
Nicolas joins us too, and from the way my mother’s cooked, you’d think we were feeding a small army.
We sit. We eat. We laugh. For a moment, it feels like a family again. For a moment, I can almost believe my father’s just in the other room.
“Lorenzo was such a naughty boy,” Nicolas says with a grin, sipping his wine. “He used to run around shooting the guards with those paint guns. One time, Giovanni was hosting an important meeting, and all the guards were standing there covered in paint like a rainbow.”
My mother laughs, and Serena’s eyes light up with it.
“Or when he hid in the kitchen closet with all the cookies I made for our guests,” my mother adds. “I baked a hundred cookies, and Lorenzo stole them all. Ate half before anyone found him.”
“Oh, that day,” Nicolas bursts out laughing. “We had to take him to the hospital! I told the nurse a nine-year-old ate fifty cookies. And the worst part? They were peanut butter cookies, and he’s allergic to peanut butter!”
Serena gasps, laughing through it. “Oh no! Poor baby!”
“I wasn’t a baby,” I growl, smirking at her.
“My favorite,” Nicolas says, still chuckling, “was your father yelling at me, not because you ate the cookies, but because I didn’t know where you were fast enough. That’s when I started putting trackers in all your shoes.” The table erupts in laughter.
“I love your family,” Serena whispers to me, kissing me softly. My mother watches, her face soft, and Nicolas reaches for her hand.
We finish dinner and help clean, ignoring my mother’s protests. It’s late, and we say our goodbyes now since we leave before dawn. Serena hugs them both, promising to visit again and even cook for them next time. Nicolas gets a hug from me and a thank-you for looking after my mother.
Then my mother pulls me into her arms, holding me tightly. “I love you so much. Thank you for coming.” Her voice trembles. She glances at Serena, her eyes soft. “I love her,” she says quietly. Then she leans close to me, her lips near my ear.
“Tuo padre non ha avuto un infarto.”
The world tilts. My breath stops. I fucking knew it. Hearing it confirmed is a knife to the ribs.
She’s crying when I pull back.
“I know,” I say. It’s all I can manage.
But inside, one thought pounds over and over, I will find out what happened. And when I do, someone’s going to pay in blood.