Chapter 30 Alessio
ALESSIO
“Watch this!”
Austin bounces on the couch, jabbing his finger at the TV as Superman streaks across the screen in that ridiculous red cape.
It’s the hundredth time he’s said it in the past hour, but I keep my mouth shut. The kid’s excitement is infectious, and the fact that he wants to share this? It gets to me.
Two days.
That’s how long Nina and Austin have been living in my place, and the adjustment period is going better than I expected. Austin’s rolling with it like kids do, no overthinking, just accepting whatever comes next. Nina’s the one tiptoeing around like she’s waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Can’t say I blame her. When your entire life has been one letdown after another, good things probably feel like a trap.
“I want to direct movies when I grow up,” Austin announces, tearing his eyes away from the screen long enough to look at me.
I ruffle his already messy hair. “Didn’t you tell me yesterday you wanted to be a Lego Master Builder?”
He rolls his eyes with the exasperation of someone three times his age. “I can do both, you know.”
The attitude in that response sounds exactly like his mother when she’s annoyed with me. I bite back a grin.
“What’s your job?” he asks, swiveling to face me completely.
The question stops me cold. How the hell do I explain that I run a strip club to a six-year-old? Or that I’m a capo in the mafia?
Right. I don’t.
“I own a bar,” I reply finally. There’s technically a bar in the club, so it’s not entirely a lie.
“Oh. What’s a bar?”
Shit. Now I have to explain alcohol without actually explaining alcohol. Will Nina kill me if I corrupt our kid? Probably. And I’m pretty sure a six-year-old doesn’t need to understand the concept of getting wasted.
“I like my new room,” Austin chatters on, mercifully changing the subject before I can dig myself deeper. “Did you like superheroes when you were my age?”
The question drags me back to when I was seven, right around the time my dad decided family life wasn’t for him. Those memories are fuzzy at best—trauma has a way of wiping the slate clean.
What I do remember isn’t bedtime stories or hugs. It’s voices raised behind closed doors, the smell of gin on his clothes, and then one day he was just gone.
“Sure,” I lie, but my mind’s stuck in the past now. I can’t recall a single moment like this with my father. No movies, no conversations about dreams and plans. Most of my memories of him are distant, impersonal.
Back then, I thought he was a decent dad right up until he vanished.
But sitting here with Austin, I’m realizing I might have been looking at him through rose-colored glasses.
When you’re seven, you don’t have much to compare your parents to.
Maybe my dad was already halfway out the door, and I was too young to see the signs.
“Watch this!” Austin shouts again, pulling me back to the present.
I focus on Superman swooping down to catch some woman who’s fallen off a building. Austin cheers like it’s the first time he’s seen it.
“Superman is brave and strong,” he grins. “He protects people.”
“Like his girlfriend. What’s her name again?”
“Lois,” Austin says without hesitation. “He likes her a lot.”
We watch in silence for a few minutes before another question comes.
“Alessio, would you protect my mom the way Superman protects Lois?”
There’s more behind that question. He’s not just asking about protection—he wants to know if I care about his mother the way Superman cares about Lois.
“Yeah, kiddo. I’ll do anything to keep both of you safe.”
Superman might have a cape, but I’ve got something better: the will to put a bullet in anyone who comes near them.
“Good,” he says simply, settling back against the couch. “I can tell you like her. You get the same look Superman gets.” His head finds my ribs, and my arm automatically goes around his shoulders.
A crack runs through the armor I’ve worn too long. This is the first time he’s done this, the first time he’s reached for me like I’m someone safe. Someone he trusts.
By the time the credits roll, his breathing has evened out into sleep. I click off the TV and carefully lift him, surprised by how light he feels. As I pass the master bedroom, I glance in and see Nina curled up in a chair with a book. She's giving us space.
We haven’t told Austin I’m his father. Soon, but not yet. I want him to get comfortable with me first, want this to feel natural when we finally drop that news on him. The last thing I need is for him to be disappointed when he finds out.
Getting to know him has been a surprise. I figured kids were just loud, sticky distractions, but Austin’s actually interesting. Smart. Funny in ways I didn’t expect. His questions make me think, and his excitement about random stuff is starting to rub off on me.
In his room, I tuck him under the Captain America comforter and flip on the nightlight. When I step into the hallway, Nina’s waiting for me, leaning against the wall with a soft smile that makes everything else go quiet.
“You’re good with him,” she murmurs, something warm in her eyes.
Relief floods through me. I’ve been winging this whole dad thing, and honestly, I had no idea if I was screwing it up.
“You’ve done an amazing job raising him. I wish you hadn’t had to do it alone.”
She shrugs, but I catch the flash of old pain in her eyes. “No point in living with regret. But there’s something I want to show you.”
I follow her into the bedroom, where a thick baby book lies open on the bed.
She hands it to me, and we settle side by side as I turn through the pages.
Photo after photo of Austin’s life unfolds in front of me—a chubby, bald baby growing into a toddler with a gap-toothed grin, then a kid with wild curls and mischievous eyes that already look like trouble.
Every milestone is documented. First steps, first words, first haircut. There’s even a letter Nina wrote for Austin to read when he’s older. Years of his life I missed, all carefully preserved in this book.
I’ll never get those years back, and the loss guts me. But at least she saved them, every photo, every scribbled detail. Like she always knew one day I’d need to see who my son was before I showed up.
I work to swallow around the tightness in my throat as I look up. Nina’s watching me with understanding in her gray eyes, her hand coming up to touch my jaw before she kisses me.
This book, this woman, this life she’s built for our son—it’s more than I ever thought I’d have. More than I probably deserve.
But I’m keeping it anyway.