Chapter Twenty-Seven
Caity
An hour earlier...
“Mom? Are you here?”
I’d heard the elevator doors open, hoping it was Cian finally coming back home. He’d been gone for hours, when Sal called to let me know he had shown up at the office.
“I’m here, sweetheart.”
“Is Dad home?” she asked, looking around the apartment.
“No. He’s still at the office.” I hoped my voice didn’t give away how upset I was.
“I saw Sinclair,” she announced.
My body stiffened, as I turned to look at her. “And?” I asked. She held up a file.
“This is everything he has on the Valentinetti family.” I followed her to the dining table and she opened the envelope, pulling out the stack of papers.
A quick look through the papers and I was already sick to my stomach. Pages and pages of records of women who’d given birth to children who were then stolen from them and sold.
I’d done some research after Cian left. I wanted to read about Sylvia St. James. I knew she was heavily involved in charity work, but I hadn’t expected Nicolette Valentinetti to be on the board of Sylvia’s charity, Sunshine Child.
I’d found information about Sunshine Child and its subsidiary, Sunshine Kids. Everything about Sylvia St. James and the Society had been released years ago.
I’d never paid attention to the news reports because I didn’t think it had anything to do with me and my family. I wish I’d known then how utterly wrong I was.
This would not only affect Henry, who bore the Valentinetti name, but if the public found out that Maddie was the granddaughter of Sylvia St. James, she and Henry would never be safe.
I looked at my daughter. Her brow was furrowed as she read through the papers Sinclair had given her.
“I don’t understand any of this. How could this man be so evil and yet have a hand in raising children who were so good?”
“Maddie, you said it yourself: Illyria is the only one you’ve met and, well, she wasn’t exactly friendly.”
“No, but she’s protecting my son. I can’t fault her for that.” She looked up at me. “You would have acted the same way,” she said with a smile.
“That’s true.” Maddie didn’t know the truth about Illyria Valentinetti. I wouldn’t be the one to tell her. Not unless we got Henry back. “But the rest are boys. You know as well as I do that the boys are raised to be like their fathers.”
“Uncle Sal isn’t like Grandfather.”
I smiled at her logic. My brother was certainly no saint, but she was right. He wasn’t the monster my father was. “That’s true, but still—”
“Mom, I know. But I trusted Salvatore. I trusted him with my son. He wasn’t like his father.
He died for his sister. Giovanni almost died for his wife, and he walked away from the family business.
Lorenzo too. Luciano was killed before he had the chance to fall in love, and Antonio gave up everything for Grace.
Men who do this...” She held up the papers in her hand.
“They don’t put others first. Especially the women in their lives. ”
I had to agree with her. My father was working with Valentino Valentinetti. He wouldn’t have given up anything for a woman. Hell, he wouldn’t even give up his freedom and marry one of the many women he impregnated.
“Sinclair offered to help me,” Maddie said quietly as she stared at the files.
“With what?”
She looked up at me with tears in her eyes. “Getting Henry back.”
I blinked at her. Confusion setting in. “Why would he do that?”
Maddie shrugged. “I told him no.”
I reached across the table and took her hand. “Oh, Maddie, why?”
“Because I can’t disrupt his life. He doesn’t know me.” She paused and looked out the window. “I went to the park, but he had already gone home. I missed seeing him. I should have gone there first.”
A tear slipped over her cheek, and I wondered if something else was bothering her.
“Honey, what is it?” I asked. “You’ve missed him before and not been this sad.”
She pulled her hand from mine and leaned back in her chair. “I spoke to someone. Or rather, he spoke to me.”
“Who?” I asked. I could already feel my back straightening, knowing that if someone hurt her, I would go to the city I hated and pound on Illyria’s front door. They had no cause to treat my daughter this way.
“He was one of Maxim’s men.”
“Did he threaten you?”
“No. He...”
“He what, sweetheart? What did he do?”
“He didn’t do anything. He told me that Henry had already gone home.”
“Then why are you upset, Maddie?”
I didn’t care what my brother said; if one of Maxim’s men had hurt my little girl, I would go to war with the Bratva myself. Everything I’d done in my life was for her. To keep her safe. I wouldn’t change that now.
“I felt something,” she whispered, as if she were afraid to say it out loud.
“What do you mean?”
She stood up and walked to the window. Her arms held her stomach as if she were in pain. All I could do was wait. I wouldn’t push her to talk, but suddenly everything fell into place, and I understood exactly what she was afraid of.
“Maddie, it’s okay to fall in love again,” I said carefully. “He wouldn’t want you to be alone.”
She shook her head but didn’t turn around. “He was my everything. He was my life. No one can take his place.”
“Oh, honey, of course no one could take his place. That isn’t what I meant. Salvatore has been gone for three years. He would want you to be happy.”
“It’s not enough. It will never be enough.”
I stood up and walked to my daughter. I wrapped my arms around her and stared at her reflection in the window.
“You are a beautiful woman. Both inside and out. You have so much love to give. Salvatore wouldn’t want you to be alone for the rest of your life. If he loved you as much as you loved him, he’d want you to find love again.”
“I’ll never find a love like that again,” she cried.
“No, baby, you won’t. You’ll find a different love. One no less magical, no less consuming.”
“What about you?” She sniffled.
“What about me?”
“You didn’t love Nolan. You love my father, and I know he loves you. You can be together now.”
I dropped my arms and took a step back. “That’s not the same thing. My time has passed.”
Maddie turned around, brushed the tears away, and said, “You’re here. In his house... in his bed.” She smirked. “But you won’t let yourself be happy. This is your time to finally have what you’ve always wanted.”
I shook my head. “No. It wouldn’t be fair to you.”
“What are you talking about?”
I sat back at the table and this time it was my tears that fell. “It’s my fault you lost everything, Maddie. I don’t deserve to be happy when you aren’t.”
“Mom, it’s not your fault. I shouldn’t have said that. I was angry when I said that. I’d just found out that Cian was my father, and I felt like I missed out on having my dad in my life. He was quick to remind me that he’d always been there for me. The way a dad should.”
She sat down at the table with me and took my hand.
“Do you know what would make me happy? What makes every child happy?” I shook my head. “Seeing my parents together, loving each other. He loves you, Mom.”
“It’s not that simple, Maddie.”
“Why? You just told me Salvatore wouldn’t want me to be alone. That he would want me to be happy. I want you to be happy. I want you to be loved.”
I stared at my daughter. She was giving me permission to be happy. After everything she’d lost, because of my choices, my decisions. She wanted me to live my life.
“I’ll make a deal with you.”
She looked at me skeptically. “What kind of deal?”
“I’ll live my life if you live yours.”
She shook her head. “Mom, it’s not the same. You have a chance to be with the man you’ve loved your whole life. Mine is gone. He’s never coming back.”
“Your husband is never coming back, and I will live with that guilt for the rest of my life.” She went to speak, and I held my hand up. “It was my husband who gave him to the monster who killed him.”
“But you didn’t know. You didn’t know Salvatore or Henry existed.”
“But I should have known what Nolan was up to. I chose to bury my head in the sand for my own peace of mind. It was wrong, and nothing you say will change my mind... but you have a child. A child who one day will know what you gave up for him. And he will tell you the same thing that you are telling me now. It’s okay to live, Maddie. ”
I reached over and wiped the tear away.
“I’ll live in the present, if you will.” I smiled.
She nodded, smiling back and said, “I’ll try.”
“Good,” I said, and clapped my hands together. “Let’s have some wine and go through these papers.”
An hour later, Maddie and I finished the bottle of wine, and we were both reeling from what we had learned. The elevator bell rang just before the doors opened; I turned to see Cian and a smile spread across my face.
“You’re home.”
“I am.” He smiled back. A smile that didn’t reach his eyes. I should never have told him the truth. I should have kept that secret and taken it to my grave. It seemed every decision I made was always the wrong one.
“Hi, Dad.”
Cian kissed her on the head and said, “Hey, sweetheart. Liam is downstairs to make sure you get home okay. I need to talk to your mom.”
“Okay,” she said, drawing out the word. She looked at me and I nodded, hoping my smile was convincing.
“Remember what I said, Mom,” Maddie said as she hugged me. I nodded and watched her leave.
Once she was gone, Cian asked, “What did she say?”
I shook my head. “It doesn’t matter.” I stood from the table, taking our dishes to the sink. “What did you need to talk to me about?”
I wasn’t sure what I’d expected him to say. I knew he was angry with me. That I should never have told him about his birth parents. What I didn’t expect was what he said next. “It’s time you moved back to your house.”
I spun around and glared at him. “What?”
“You need to move back to the house. The files have all been removed. No one has been back there in weeks. It’s safe.”
“It’s safe? That’s it?” I questioned. “What happened to ‘I’m never letting you go’? What happened to ‘you’re mine now’? Was that just bullshit so you could fuck me again?”
“Caity,” he sighed. “Things are different now.”
“Different how? Because you know who your birth parents are? What difference does that make?”
“It makes all the fuckin’ difference. You aren’t safe with me. You and Maddie both.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I asked, my hands on my hips. Wasn’t this just perfect? I promised my daughter that I would give her father a chance. That I would let myself be happy, let myself have the one thing I’d always wanted, and now he didn’t want me.
“What did you tell me, Caity? That you couldn’t be with me because your father would kill me?
Even after he was dead, you still wouldn’t be with me because divorce was a fuckin’ sin.
Those were your words. Well, I’m telling you the same thing.
We just weren’t meant to be together I guess. ” He shrugged.
He fucking shrugged.
I stared at him, not believing what he was saying.
He stood in front of me saying the words as if changing his mind was no big deal.
As if I hadn’t walked away from the only bit of independence I’d ever had because he asked me to trust him.
Because he made me a promise. A promise he was now breaking.
“Fuck you, Cian.”