Chapter 21 #2
I am ready to accept the out, ready to turn the subject away.
But it’s not fair.
I can’t ask her to take my wants into consideration, ask her to give up her career, change the trajectory of her entire life without giving her anything of me.
“My children. And ours.” I nod to her stomach. “Maybe even more. Vito and Caterina arguing. Nico watching but wanting no part of it. My brothers. You.”
I bite my lip and hesitate on the next part. “Lucia. Her daughters. Even that bastard. If that’s what it takes.”
My eyes flick to the empty seats surrounding the long table and see her once again. All of them, adding their own chaos to the scene.
“I want to see my grandchildren, and not just pictures and short clips through a glass wall on a small phone screen.”
Her look shifts, and there’s a bit of prosecutor in it, but she keeps her voice soft. “Pictures and clips you shouldn’t have seen,” she says. Not an accusation, just a fact.
“They’re my blood,” I say, my voice going hard and quiet at once.
“I won’t apologize for watching the only way I can.
I don’t knock on her door. I don’t make calls that ruin her dinner.
Paparazzi don’t catch any pictures of them.
Dixon has that kind of power. So I do what I have to.
No one disturbs them, and she never knows they were there. ” I shake my head. “I won’t apologize.”
She doesn’t ask me to.
“I’ve never heard them, but I can tell you what Sofia’s laugh looks like,” I say, remembering a short clip of them in a park that one of my brothers managed to get.
“She looks just like Lucia, laughing with her whole body, throwing her head back. Charlotte copies her as little sisters will do, though she likely doesn’t know what she’s laughing at.
“Caterina did the same with Lucia,” I murmur, lost in the memories.
“Followed her around the house like a puppy, wanted to dress like her, eat the same foods. Had a fit when Lucia went off to middle school and left her behind. It annoyed Lucia to no end. But I think she secretly liked it, and I think she missed it when Caterina stopped.”
I look down at my fish; its appeal is gone. I signal for them to clear it and bring dessert, though I don’t know if I’ll be able to stomach it. But it’s not for my sake; it’s for Elena’s.
“Have you…” I can’t bring myself to finish, wanting to ask and afraid to.
But I don’t have to. She understands.
“Once,” she says softly. “Before you were released. We had the condition that we would inform her if and when. She is an important factor, and well, Nick Dixon has a lot of influence, so we were willing to oblige.”
“You spoke to her?” I ask, trying to imagine what she sounds like, even over the phone.
“I went to see her.” Elena clears her throat and looks down.
My eyes whip to hers at that.
“You’ve seen her?” The words leave me before I can school them correctly. “Just her or…?”
“Her daughters were there too,” she says, eyes dropping to the tablecloth.
A cart rolls in, and I have to bite back a sharp command for everyone to get the hell out.
Dessert lands between us: thin wedges of torta di ricotta al limone, baked till just-set and satin-smooth, dusted with powdered sugar. On the side, warm blueberry compote, a few macerated strawberries, and a twist of lemon zest. They top off Elena’s spritz and vanish.
I ignore my plate and lean closer. “Tell me,” I say. “Please.”
She hesitates.
“They’re my grandchildren,” I plead. “I’ve never held them. Never heard them laugh. It’s just crumbs, Elena.”
She cuts a small corner of her torta, lets it sit on her tongue a second before answering.
“She looked good,” Elena says carefully. “Healthy. The only reference I had was the pictures from the file, from when she was a teenager. Her hair is longer.” She shakes her head, letting a strand loose. “Sorry, I’m sure you know that.”
“No, no. Tell me everything. “Did she—” I stop, try again. “Was she happy? Is that… man treating her right?”
“She was a bit protective,” Elena says. “Focused. It wasn’t an easy visit, you see. But yes. He practically fawned over her. That man would move mountains. I promise. Their house was full of light and love and laughter.”
She sets the fork down, and a small smile ghosts her lips. “Sofia laughs with her whole body. You were right about that.”
“And Charlotte?”
The name echoes in my mind. I remember the day Giovanni came to see me to tell me that Lucia had just had another girl, and that she’d name her Charlotte.
For a second, I couldn’t hear anything else. The room shifted and blurred. Carlotta’s name, filtered through another language. Every part of me wanted to fold over the table and just give in to the grief. Out in the open, where anybody could see it and use it against me. I didn’t move.
In there, you couldn’t move. You couldn’t let them see. You don’t give a guard or another prisoner something to whisper about, something to joke about. I nodded once, slowly, like he’d told me he was out of razors and had to pick some up on the way home. “Good,” I said.
That was all. Good.
Giovanni kept talking while I counted breaths and kept my face stoic when all I wanted to do was break down.
Then the guard tapped the clock.
On the walk back, I put my hands behind my back, looked at the floor tiles so I didn’t have to see my reflection in the glass.
In the cell, I sat on the edge of the rack, and the mattress was thin and loud.
It crackled when I leaned forward and pressed my knuckles to my eyes.
Not long—ten seconds, maybe twelve—just enough to let the heat bleed off, and I could lift them again.
I whispered her name once, the old way—Carlotta—then the new one—Charlotte—so quiet it disappeared before it reached the bars.
A smile breaks out on Elena’s face. “Charlotte is a little diva, that’s for sure. She and Sofia are characters. In a good way, I mean,” she adds quickly. “Sofia’s a sassy little thing.”
“I know what you mean,” I assure her. “She sounds a lot like Caterina. And Carlotta.”
Elena nods, and I know she’s put together that Charlotte is named after my late wife.
“She looks a little like your… wife,” Elena says after a breath. “I’ve only seen some pictures, of course, so I could be wrong about that. I don’t want to assume—”
She shakes her head and looks down.
“It’s okay,” I tell her. “I don’t mind. Please go on.”
“It’s the eyes,” Elena continues. “Not the color. Those are Lucia’s—yours too. But the shape is like your wife’s.”
My hand tightens around the fork. She has my eye color. I didn’t know that.
“Sofia looks a lot like her dad. Intense until she laughs, then she becomes a different person.”
The picture Elena is drawing forms in my mind a happy little family. One I’m not part of.
Elena must sense my mood because she’s stopped talking and is dragging her fork through the torta, a frown line between her brows.
Inwardly, I curse myself. This is not what tonight was supposed to be. Tonight was supposed to be about Elena and this child. About showing her I can carry weight, not hand her my baggage.
Here I am trying to convince her I can be present and a good father, a good provider, and all I’ve done is tell her how much I’ve missed.
That I haven’t seen my oldest daughter in over a decade because my pride was more important than being her father.
That I sat behind glass and could only watch as the woman I loved got sicker and sicker, then finally passed away without me there.
That my other kids were left to fend for themselves, and that my brothers had to step in and do my job for me.
I set the fork down, palms flat on either side of the plate like I’m steadying the table, or myself. “This isn’t what was meant to happen tonight,” I say, trying to stay calm. “I’m sorry.”
Her frown eases a notch. She waits.
“I don’t get to rewrite any of that,” I go on, forcing myself to hold her eyes.
“Not the parts where I failed. I won’t pretend I didn’t.
It would be insulting to us both. But I decide what I do and who I am from this minute forward.
For you. For…” My gaze flickers, just once, to the place where her shirt rests over a new, secret life.
I sit very still and think about all the ways I am not allowed to touch her, and about the one way I hope I already have.
“What do you want, Luca?” she asks again, softer. “If I keep it.”
I don’t give her a speech. I don’t offer guarantees I can’t keep.
“I want to be there,” I say. “In whatever way you allow. To build a life that doesn’t make you choose between what you are and what we’ve made. To give you real reasons to trust me.” I let out a breath and just go all in with the rest of it.
“And I want to sit at this table with you and our child and all the rest of them and the chaos they bring.” But I realize that is likely a pipe dream.
A laugh startles out of her and lodges right in my heart. She shakes her head, and when she looks up, her eyes are watering.
“And if I don’t?” she asks, and the question is a blade she turns on herself as much as me.
“Then I will carry that,” I say. “And you. As long as you need.” I meet her eyes because the one thing I owe her is that. “But I’m asking you not to.”
The quiet that follows is heavy. Somewhere, a nightbird warbles its first note.
“You said you’re not a different man from the one described in the reports,” she says finally.
“I’m not,” I answer.
“Then you know what I’m afraid of.”
“I do,” I say.
And then, because what matters is what I do with that knowledge: “I pride myself on being a fast learner, but it took me too long to learn this one, I’m ashamed to admit. I won’t choose that over my child again. That’s my path now.”
She holds my gaze. My pulse stutters with uncertainty, then holds steady.
“What do you need from me, Elena?” I ask. “Not in theory. Right now.”
She picks up the fork again and continues sliding it through the satin-smooth torta, creating deep-set lines.
“I’m supposed to have an ultrasound at eight weeks,” she says, and I know she wasn’t going to tell me about it. At least not until after it happened. “That’s in two weeks.”
I keep my voice level, so I don’t sound like a desperate fool. “Do you want me there?”
“I don’t know what I’m doing,” she says abruptly, surprising herself and me. “I know what I’m supposed to do. I have it all memorized: the lists, and the dos and don’ts. I know it all. I understand it all.” She blows out a breath.
“But none of it tells me what to do when I wake up in the morning and want to throw up, not because of the pregnancy, but from fear. Or how to deal with staring at the ceiling at night and realizing I’ve never been alone in a room and really felt alone until—”
She stops, and she pulls a shaky breath in. “Until lately.”
My heart aches for her. I’ve been thinking of myself through all this and how I was going to convince Elena to let me into the child’s life, and how different it would be this time around. I never stopped to think how scared she might be. How everything is changing for her, too.
I reach out and cover her hand with mine. “You’re not alone,” I say.
It’s the truest thing I’ve ever said to her.
“Don’t promise me things you can’t give,” she says, but there’s no bite. Just a plea.
“I’m promising what I can,” I say.
“I haven’t even made an appointment yet,” she confesses. “I don’t have a doctor. Every time I look, none of them seems right. It all feels wrong. All I want to do is talk to my mother, and I can’t—”
A tear spills, and she stops to blow out a shuddering breath.
“Breathe, dolcezza,” I murmur, squeezing her hand. “Breathe.” I match her—inhale, hold, let it out. Once, twice. Until her jaw unclenches, and her shoulders drop an inch.
“What kind of professional am I? I can’t even pick a doctor,” she says on the exhale, a helpless little laugh threaded into it. “It feels like if I choose wrong, it’ll be the end of the world.”
“You won’t,” I say softly. “You can do this.”
She gives me a look that says, if I weren’t holding her hand, she might throw the fork at me. “Oh, thanks. Revolutionary.”
I smile. “How about this? I will get you three names,” I offer. “Tell me what you’re looking for, and I will have those names by morning. If you don’t like any of them, you tell me, and I start over.”
Her fingers flex under mine. “What if they can’t see me in two weeks? I should’ve made an appointment right away.”
“Give me a little credit, Panini,” I say, giving her a cocky smirk I know will make her smile.
It does, but only briefly.
“Come,” she says.
She doesn’t elaborate, but my heart leaps.
“I will be there,” I tell her. “I promise.”
Then I add: “Unless you choose somewhere outside the city limits.”
I stick my ankle out from under the table.
She snorts and leans back, breaking contact with me. It’s worth it to hear her laugh.
“Give me a break, Conti,” she says, a little bit of Long Island seeping into her voice. “You’re fooling exactly no one.”
“It’s a good thing I’m not trying to.” I lean back and grin. “Anymore.”
The balled-up napkin hits me right in the forehead.