Chapter Twenty-Eight
LUCIA
It takes four days for Matteo Moretti to respond to my letter.
Four days during which I question sending it at least a hundred times.
Four days of wondering whether he’ll deny everything, demand proof, or pretend the letter never arrived.
His response comes by hand.
Not through the mail.
Not by telephone.
A man in a dark suit arrives at the Belmont gates carrying a cream-colored envelope with my name written across the front.
Not Romanova.
Not Catenzio.
Lucia Rossi.
The handwriting is dark and deliberate, each letter formed as though whoever wrote it expected the name to last.
Inside are three lines:
I knew your mother.
I did not know about you.
Tell me where and when.
I read them at the kitchen table.
Then I read them again.
Gio sits across from me, unusually silent. Marco stands near the counter with one hand wrapped around a cup of coffee he hasn’t touched. Morning sunlight lies across the table between us, illuminating the envelope and the familiar slant of my own name.
Neither brother asks to see the letter.
I appreciate that.
It also makes me want to show them.
I slide it across the table.
Gio reads it first. His eyes move over the three lines, then lift to mine.
“What do you want to do?”
“I want to meet him.”
Marco says nothing.
I look at him.
“You think it’s dangerous.”
“Possibly.”
“But you aren’t going to tell me not to.”
“No.”
“Do you want to tell me not to?”
“Yes.”
The honesty almost makes me smile.
“Why?”
“Matteo Moretti doesn’t go anywhere without calculating what he might gain from it.”
“He may be my father.”
“That doesn’t make him less powerful.”
“It doesn’t make him dangerous to me.”
“We don’t know that yet.”
I fold the letter along its original crease.
“Where should I meet him?”
“Somewhere neutral,” Gio says.
“Public,” Marco adds.
“With exits,” Gio says.
“And controlled access.”
I look between them.
“That sounds like the opposite of public.”
“It can be both,” Marco says.
“Vesuvio?”
“No.”
Their answer comes together.
I lean back.
“Why not?”
“It belongs to us,” Gio says. “Moretti would view it as a challenge.”
“And the last time you were there—” Marco stops.
“I remember.”
His jaw tightens.
“So do I.”
The Rossi building key rests beside my coffee.
I pick it up.
“Prince Street.”
Marco frowns.
“The building isn’t secure.”
“It can be for the meeting.”
“It also belongs to you.”
“Exactly.”
“It isn’t neutral.”
“It’s mine, but it belonged to my mother. If Matteo knew her there, he may be more comfortable.”
“Or less,” Gio says.
“That isn’t necessarily bad.”
Marco studies me.
“When?”
“Tomorrow.”
“That’s too soon.”
“Why?”
“We need time to evaluate his people, establish a perimeter, and—”
“Tomorrow,” I repeat.
His mouth closes.
Gio looks toward the ceiling to hide a smile.
“Fine.”
The answer is reluctant.
It’s still an answer.
Matteo arrives at eleven the following morning.
The Rossi building has been quiet since Enzo opened the grocery downstairs. Through the old floorboards come the muffled sounds of customers, the scrape of wooden crates, and the bells above the shop door. Dust hangs in the sunlight entering my mother’s office, turning the air faintly gold.
I place the glass horse back on the windowsill and watch as three black vehicles stop along Prince Street.
The first man out is broad enough to block most of the rear door when he opens it. Two others survey the street, their attention moving over windows, rooftops, parked cars, and pedestrians.
Matteo emerges last.
He was younger in the newspaper photographs.
Now silver threads his dark hair at the temples. He wears a charcoal suit despite the July heat. His movements are controlled, every step deliberate.
He pauses on the sidewalk and looks up at the faded ROSSI IMPORTS sign.
Something changes in his face.
He remembers this place.
My pulse begins to race.
Dario stands outside the office door. Armando and Matteo’s men negotiate downstairs about who is permitted to go where. Their voices rise faintly through the stairwell before dropping again.
Marco and Gio wait on the landing one floor below.
Neither was pleased when I closed the door between us.
The office suddenly feels too small. The air is warmer than it was a moment ago, and the faded scarf hanging over my mother’s chair moves slightly in the draft from the open window.
I consider opening the door again.
Instead, I move behind my mother’s desk and wrap my fingers around the back of her chair.
Footsteps climb the stairs.
Slow.
Measured.
They stop outside.
Dario knocks once.
“Matteo Moretti,” he announces.
“Let him in.”
The door opens.
Matteo enters alone.
His gaze finds me immediately.
He stops.
For several seconds, neither of us speaks.
His eyes move over my face.
Not in the way Viktor’s associates examined me.
He looks as though he is searching for someone he lost.
“Lucia.”
My name sounds unfamiliar in his voice.
“Mr. Moretti.”
His expression tightens.
“Matteo, please.”
I nod.
“You chose her office.”
“Yes.”
His attention travels around the room.
The desk.
The scarf.
The filing cabinets.
Then the glass horse on the windowsill.
He goes still.
“Where did you find that?”
“On the desk.”
He approaches it carefully.
Not me.
The horse.
His hand hovers above it without touching. The glass catches his shadow, darkening beneath his fingers.
“I gave this to her.”
My throat tightens.
“When?”
“Providence. There was a market near the river.”
A faint smile crosses his face.
“She said it was ugly.”
“She collected them.”
“After this one.”
I look at the glass animal.
“You started the collection?”
“I suppose I did.”
He finally looks at me again.
“What did she tell you about me?”
“Nothing.”
The smile disappears.
“She told me Alexei Romanov was my father.”
Pain moves across his face.
Real enough that I believe it.
“Did you know she was pregnant?”
“No.”
The answer comes immediately.
“You’re certain.”
“I would remember being told I had a child.”
“She may not have said the child was yours.”
“She said nothing about a pregnancy.”
He moves toward the windows, though his attention remains on the room rather than the street beyond it.
“I knew she married Romanov. I learned about it afterward.”
“Enzo says you came here the night before the wedding.”
His shoulders tighten.
“I did.”
“What happened?”
“I tried to convince her not to go through with it.”
“And?”
“She refused.”
“Did she tell you why?”
“She said it was over. That her decision had been made.”
He turns.
“Your mother was very good at disappearing when she wanted to.”
“So I’ve learned.”
“After Alexei died, I tried to contact her again. But by then, she was married to Dmitri.”
“You knew how to find her.”
“For a time.”
“But you didn’t know about me.”
“No.”
“What happened between you?”
Matteo doesn’t answer immediately.
“My father learned about us.”
“And?”
“He had arranged a marriage for me. Your grandfather wanted the Romanov alliance. Neither man appreciated our interference.”
“So they separated you.”
“They tried.”
“Did your father threaten her?”
A dangerous stillness settles over Matteo.
“Why would you ask that?”
“My mother wrote that telling you about me would destroy everything you had built and put me in danger.”
His eyes close briefly.
“My father believed family was an asset. A child—especially a first child—belonged to the organization before the parents.”
A chill moves over my skin despite the heat gathering inside the office.
“What would he have done?”
“Taken control.”
“Of me?”
“Yes.”
The answer is quiet.
“He would have forced her to marry me.”
“That sounds better than marrying Alexei.”
“It wouldn’t have been.”
There’s something in his expression I don’t understand.
“My father would have controlled where we lived, how you were raised, and whether Maria was permitted to remain near you. If she resisted him, he would have removed her.”
“Removed?”
Matteo’s mouth tightens.
I understand.
“My mother thought hiding me was safer.”
“Yes.”
“Do you agree?”
“No.”
Anger enters his voice for the first time.
“She should have trusted me.”
The words strike somewhere tender.
“Maybe she didn’t think you could protect us.”
“I would have.”
“You don’t know that.”
His eyes meet mine.
“No.”
The admission seems difficult.
“I don’t.”
He reaches inside his jacket.
Dario shifts outside the door. His shadow crosses the narrow strip of light beneath it.
Matteo notices.
Slowly, he removes a photograph and places it on the desk.
Maria sits on the hood of a car, laughing. Matteo stands between her knees, one hand resting on either side of her.
She looks younger than in any photograph Marco found.
Happy.
Unburdened.
“Where was this taken?”
“Rhode Island. My family had a house near the coast.”
“You lived together?”
“The summer before she was married.”
“No one knew?”
“People knew. They pretended not to.”
He removes several more photographs.
Maria asleep beneath a blanket.
Maria holding a glass horse.
Maria wearing Matteo’s suit jacket with the sleeves rolled over her hands.
I touch the last one.
The woman in the photograph has my mother’s face, but not the careful expression I remember. Her hair is tangled by the wind. One sleeve covers most of her hand, and she looks amused by something beyond the edge of the picture.
“I’ve never seen these.”
“I didn’t know anyone else would want them.”
“She looks happy.”
“She was.”
“Did you love her?”
Matteo looks at me.
“Yes.”
No hesitation.
No attempt to protect himself.
“Do you still?”
“She’s been dead eight years.”
“That wasn’t what I asked.”
Something near his mouth softens.
“You sound like her.”
My heart twists.
“Is that a yes?”
“Yes.”
I look down at my mother’s face.
For years, she existed only in fragments of my memory.
Now she has a life I never knew about.
A man who still loves her.
A room where she worked.
A collection that began with one ugly glass horse.
“Why didn’t she tell me?”
“I don’t know.”
“She lied about my father.”
“She may have believed she was protecting you.”
“Everyone keeps doing terrible things to protect me.”
Matteo’s gaze sharpens.
“What terrible things?”
I look at the wedding ring.
His attention follows mine.