Chapter Thirty-Two #3
I knew exactly what happened to children who ended up in Ivan Volkov's hands because I'd been one of them. I wasn't going to let them have my brother.
Anna never walked away from that courtyard.
Nonno studied me quietly before speaking again.
“Years passed after that. I never expected to see you again.”
A faint smile touched his face.
“Then your father called me after you agreed to come home. He told me he had found you.”
The words settled heavily in my chest.
“He sent me a photograph.”
Something reflective passed through his expression.
“The moment I saw it, I knew.”
I frowned. “Knew what?”
“That it was you,” he said without hesitation.
“This time, there was no mask, no contacts hiding your eyes. Just my granddaughter looking directly at the camera.”
His gaze held mine.
“And there they were.”
My chest tightened.
“The same grey eyes as Carlo,” he said quietly. “The same eyes I have spent my life seeing in the mirror.”
A silence settled between us.
“I sat with that photograph for a long time,” he continued. “Your father thought I was emotional because he had finally found his daughter. And I was. But I was also trying to understand how the girl I had seen on that street had become my granddaughter.”
I swallowed.
“All those years,” he added more softly, “and I didn't know.”
A chance collision on a city street. A brief apology. A moment neither of us understood.
Despite myself, a faint breath of amusement escaped me.
“I imagine he was screaming.”
“He was absolutely screaming,” Nonno confirmed.
“He kept talking about finding you, about bringing you home, about everything you had endured.”
His gaze returned to me, softer now.
“It wasn't only the eyes, Sabrina. It was the way you looked at the camera. Like you were already calculating your way out of the room.”
Heat rose faintly in my face.
“You make me sound insane.”
A corner of his mouth lifted.
“You are a little insane.”
I rolled my eyes. “There it is.”
The humour faded again, replaced by something steadier.
“But you were brave.”
My head lifted slightly.
“Nonno–”
“You were,” he said firmly. “I saw a child standing in front of a grown woman without fear.”
My throat tightened.
“I was terrified,” I admitted.
“I know,” he replied immediately. “That does not make it any less brave.”
Silence settled between us again, no longer empty. He wasn't speaking about Morana. He was speaking about a girl trying to protect a baby with nothing but instinct and desperation, and somehow, that truth weighed heavier than anything else.
For the first time that night, neither of us seemed in any hurry to fill the silence. Nonno's gaze eventually drifted towards the mug beside me. The tea had long since gone cold.
“Tea?”
I glanced down at the mug and shrugged.
“Tea.”
A look of mild disbelief crossed his face.
“You're seventeen.”
“I am aware.”
“Most people your age are drinking alcohol. Some of your brothers certainly did at your age.”
A small smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
“That doesn't surprise me.”
His eyes returned to the mug.
“Yet here you are drinking tea at one in the morning.”
There was curiosity beneath the observation, and I knew he was asking more than he was saying.
I wrapped my fingers around the ceramic.
“I used to drink.”
Something shifted in his expression.
“Used to?”
I nodded. “A lot, actually.”
Nonno remained silent, giving me room to continue if I wanted to. For a few moments, I watched the faint reflection of the kitchen lights ripple across the surface of the tea.
“I stopped a few months before Dario was born.”
His gaze sharpened slightly.
“Why?”
The answer came easily enough. The truth did not.
I could have told him the whole truth. Instead, I said, “When Dario came along, I realised somebody needed to be responsible.”
The corner of Nonno's mouth twitched.
“You?”
“I know,” I replied dryly. “Shocking.”
“It is a little shocking.”
I rolled my eyes.
A soft chuckle escaped him before his expression settled into something more thoughtful.
“You know, most people spend years looking for a reason to change. Some never find one.”
I looked up.
His gaze remained fixed on the mug between us.
“You found one before he was even born.”
Something tightened unexpectedly in my chest.
I'd never thought about it that way. At the time, it hadn't felt noble or admirable. It had felt necessary. Dario had needed someone dependable, and whether I was qualified for the role or not, there had been nobody else.
Nonno seemed to understand more than I'd actually told him. He didn't press for details or ask what those years had looked like. Instead, he simply nodded, as though he understood that some stories would be told eventually and others needed more time.
Then, without warning, he reached across the counter, picked up my mug and took a sip.
His face immediately twisted in disgust.
“This is cold.”
I stared at him.
“You just drank my tea.”
“It was terrible.”
“You chose to drink it.”
“I was investigating.”
“That is not how investigations work.”
“It confirmed my suspicions.”
I shook my head, and for the first time since he had walked into the kitchen, a genuine laugh escaped me.