Luca
Novae Bonetti. My daughter’s name settled deep in my chest every time I whispered it out loud or thought it.
Never in a million years did I believe healing could weigh six pounds and two ounces, fitting perfectly in the bend of my arm.
I smelled my baby all over me and didn’t want to leave her just to tend to another part of me that had to be ended immediately.
It felt like a gift and curse laying eyes on La’Nova.
I couldn’t pinpoint my feelings in the midst of her giving birth to our daughter.
All I felt were severe emotions watching her push with all her might to deliver Novae.
Soon as I heard my baby cry, my anger disappeared.
I thanked God I was able to witness my daughter being born but felt robbed of the chance to witness her grow in her mother’s womb.
I had no words for La’Nova. Words would be too dangerous to speak.
My words would turn into actions that I’d regret.
I wanted to do more than just blow up her camper and set her house on fire.
Forgiveness was something I didn’t dish out willingly.
For Novae, I had to search somewhere deep inside of me to forgive La’Nova for multiple things.
Things that hurt me permanently. I fell in love with a woman that killed my father.
I asked myself over and over how could I still feel anything for her.
When I got tired of asking myself this question, I turned to God.
Turning to God over and over with the same question only made my yearning for her during her absence worse.
I thought cutting her off and getting over her would be easy.
Instead, she left willingly while carrying my baby.
La’Nova hurting me was optional, and I felt like I couldn’t excuse her recent act that was intended to hurt me.
What she did was selfish. When she had different options to choose from, even if it didn’t include us being together…
We could have planned the birth of Novae together.
My love for her was so raw, that it did something violent to my soul. She was the first person to make me forget what pain felt like, until she reintroduced it to me recently. Through the midst of every wrong La’Nova did, I still named our daughter with her in mind.
Novae’s name was a reminder to me, that even after destruction, beautiful things could still be born from ashes.
Looking at La’Nova breastfeeding Novae was like looking at pain and love tangled together.
When I held my daughter and it was just her and I…
I felt no confusion, no toxicity, no war.
I felt clarity in every next move that I needed to make moving forward.
Starting with Lucille. My mother. A woman that I loved since birth, and my first heartbreak that I mourned since a kid. I was robbed of a normal voice. Robbed of her love. She was the mastermind behind a lot of destruction and disloyalty that kept pulsing through the Bonetti name.
I started to mourn her the moment Roy told me that my grandfather was murdered.
Lucille went too far, and it opened my eyes more to how far she’d be willing to go to have power over all.
Roy didn’t have to tell me that Lucille thought she was doing me a favor by killing my grandfather because of La’Nova.
Di Lucas would have crossed lines and suffered the consequences but Lucille really killed him for the playbook that was already void when I stepped into position as Don.
There were a couple of powerful contacts inside the book that La’Nova reached out to with hopes of going against me.
Since I refused to play her tune and let her pull the strings in the background of my position, she started to plot how to get rid of me.
For power, she was willing to plan my funeral like I had started to plan hers since killing Di Lucas. I hadn’t been back to my father’s estate since coming home from prison. The second my car rolled through the black iron gates, something old and bitter slid down my throat.
Nothing but good and bad memories haunted me.
The estate sat high against the California hills with lights glowing behind the towering windows.
Water from the front fountains spilled endlessly into the marble basins when they should have been cut off at night.
The water bill was obnoxiously high since Lucille liked to display her generations of wealth from my father’s blood, sweat, and tears immaturely by running water twenty-four seven.
I remember when this place felt magical, safe, and untouchable. Now it looked like a mausoleum dressed in money.
I stepped out my Maybach slowly, the cold night air brushed against my face while my eyes traveled over the mansion.
The smell of gardenias, Lucille’s favorite flowers, hit me before I even reached the doors.
The front doors opened soon as I landed on the last step.
Her staff lowered their eyes immediately when I walked inside as the head of staff approached me with tear filled eyes.
“She’s been in bed since yesterday, sir,” Nubian spoke lowly.
“Okay,” I whispered carefully. “I sent a nurse—”
“Ye-yes! A nurse came and highly recommended for her to be checked into a hospital. Lucille refused, I’m really worried about her.” A tear escaped Nubian’s left eye followed by another tear from her right.
I swallowed down the spit that gathered in my mouth and tried to keep my face neutral.
Nubian had been with Lucille since a teenager.
She was another rescue off the streets. To me, Lucille groomed her to be her lap dog.
I thought about putting Nubian out of her misery when all of this was said and done.
But it would be a waste of time. Nubian was afraid to lose her mentor, a woman that she looked up to as a mother she never had.
Lucille raised the perfect lapdog out of Nubian. It was mother’s specialty. She excelled in getting people to love and worship the ground she walked on.
“Designated people have been put in place for tonight, Nubian. Take a couple days off to rest.” I signed sharply to her.
If she refused me, I’d kill her ass just for being in the way.
Her beady eyes casted downward. Seconds later she wiped her tears and nodded her head with her shoulders dropped in defeat.
I eyed the expensive artwork that my father spent millions on collecting just to impress Lucille.
The house still smelled like his favorite cigars mixed with polished wood.
For a second, my chest tightened so hard as I looked down the hallway like I expected him to walk around the corner barking orders at one of his house staff with his favorite whiskey in one hand. Reality of what tonight would be about came slamming into every vein inside my body.
After tonight… I’ll officially be parentless. I told myself, accepting my new reality. I’ll have the twins, my other two nieces and nephew… and now I have a child of my own… Novae Bonetti. I soothed my own reservations because there was no backing out now.
“You know what the hardest part about being a man like me is?”
I was seventeen when my father asked me that. At the time, I was angry at the world, very reckless. Anybody disrespecting him, I handled them in the coldest way possible. I believed that power meant fear.
“The hardest part, son, is me living… after making decisions I had no choice to make.”
For a moment, I saw sadness flicker in my father’s eyes and wanted to ask him what those decisions were.
“Some decisions gon’ crush your soul whether you right or wrong. And the dangerous part ain’t the decision making.” He placed his heavy hand on my shoulder. “It’s waking up every day afterward and learning how to live with it.”
“A man can survive pain. What destroys him is regret,” I whispered to myself as I loosened my tie slightly while moving through the hallway toward the dining room.
My throat felt tight as my father’s words replayed in my mind.
The scar across my neck throbbed inwardly as I thought about my old injury behind these same expensive walls.
I stepped into the dining room and it almost knocked the air out of me.
I tried to blink the fogginess of my mind away, and rid my thoughts of my father because I felt him inside of here.
The long mahogany table stretched through the center of the room, gleaming under low chandelier light.
Crystal glasses sat beside gold-plated silverware arranged perfectly enough to look like it was just for decoration.
I looked out the floor-to-ceiling windows that overlooked the back gardens where my father smoked his cigars and entertained his table of men that loved to talk mafia politics until they argued over it. I stopped walking because my mind betrayed me instantly.
I could hear Kentrell laughing loud as hell, telling on himself after sneaking liquor before dinner.
Lucille used to scold him about it like she was mad in front of my father while secretly smiling behind her wine glass.
My father would tell Lucille that he’s just mimicking the wrong of what they display to us while cutting into his medium-rare steak.
I used to love family dinners… I guess that realization hurt worse than I expected.
Back then I’d sit at this table excited to hear my father speak.
I loved to feel included, important, and chosen by my parents and even my brother.
I had so much hopefulness locked inside of me that it crippled me in the long run.
I didn’t realize that power ate families alive from the inside out.
I swallowed down the lump of sadness before I reached for my father’s seat.
My fingers brushed against it before I pulled it out then sat down in it, feeling sick.
I leaned back slowly while staring around the empty table.
Dead memories sat in each empty chair, I allowed myself to feel the sting of it all.
Kentrell was gone by the hands of me.