Chapter Twelve #3
“I wasn’t when I found out that my friend lied to me, and convinced me to have a baby for her brother who didn’t even know he was having a baby.”
“I’m sorry. But…my father found out that I was pregnant. He was threatening me, and the baby. I had to protect my child.”
“By enslaving me.”
“No. It’s not like that. You were going to get your money. I know that the circumstances around the situation weren’t entirely transparent, but you were going to get paid.”
“You were convincing me to bring a child into the world that wasn’t wanted. Not as a child to be loved.”
“I’m sorry. I was desperate. And I regret it.
I wish that I would’ve contacted Renzo and found a way, but I was being prideful.
Because…things didn’t end well between us after I got pregnant and—” She cuts herself off.
“There’s no excuse. I didn’t know how to handle it, and I handled it very poorly. For which I’m very sorry.”
I know that I’m not going to stay mad at her.
Partly because I’m just going to choose not to.
There are so many things in the world that are just bad.
This was more complicated than being just bad.
Yeah, it was messed up. But she knows that.
She’s also lived an entirely different life to me.
Her survival instincts and mine aren’t the same.
But honestly, in her position I’m not sure what I would’ve done.
I definitely feel more empowered to go strike out on my own than she would.
But she was in a comfy prison for her entire life; at least that’s how Ciro saw it.
And I don’t know what kind of person I would’ve been in that same situation.
There’s just no point passing judgment.
“Our babies are going to be cousins,” I say. “And that means something to me. So I just want you to know that I forgive you. We’re going to be sisters-in-law, after all, and I would rather have a family than a grudge.”
On the other end of the phone, I can tell Vittoria’s crying. “I’m really sorry. I’ve been worried sick about you ever since I was taken. I wanted to contact you so many times, but I haven’t had a phone.”
“Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m handling him. Nothing about the relationship is easy. But then… You know my brother now. Apparently you’re marrying him.”
“Yes.”
“When I tell you that Renzo is very much a man cut from the same cloth, I think you can get a decent picture of what that means.”
I can. It’s easy to imagine what it means, in fact. And that’s why I know it’s not as simple as her being happy or unhappy.
“You’re safe?”
“He would never hurt me. Physically.”
My stomach goes tight. That is how I feel about Ciro. I know that I’m physically safe with him, but emotionally…we’re navigating a strange landscape, and I don’t know if we’re going to find our way across it.
But both Vittoria and I have one thing in common. We weren’t given very much as far as emotional resources, and we’ve come a long way in spite of it. And I have faith that we can take what we have now, and fashion something great out of it.
When I get off the phone with Vittoria, I feel somewhat renewed. At least I can understand where she’s coming from. I’m not so angry at her now. Though that might come from my changing relationship with Ciro.
“How does she sound to you?” he asks.
“She sounded good.”
It actually warms me to hear his concern for his sister.
I want to see the depth of him. The emotion.
He’s so stoic so often. And yet I know that it comes from a place of having to protect himself all the time.
He’s a man of outstanding moral character, when you really think about it.
All things considered, he’s taken the high road in the best way he can.
He’s done what he could do to fix things; he’s done more than anyone has done for generations, actually, to make the world a safer and better place.
But he himself is a hard man. I recognize it.
I think she’s doing the very best she can. It sounds to me like she’s in an emotional entanglement with her kidnapper.
His eyes meet mine, and I realize very much is the same for me.
I’ve been thinking about the baby. The moment that he said I was his…it became about us too. I want to be his wife.
I like the physical connection between us. And there’s something dark inside of me that’s beginning to crave something more.
“It’s a foolish thing to do. Men like Renzo…they can’t love anyone,” he says.
His eyes land on me, hard. I can see that it’s a warning. But I’m not going to let him get away with that.
“You don’t think they can love anyone?”
“No. Not really.”
“So you’re not going to love our child?”
He’s silent for a long moment. “I don’t even know what love is.”
“I think it might be something along the lines of burning an entire criminal empire to the ground in order to build something new from the ashes, in order to create a safe and secure world, not just for our child, but for other children. I think, Ciro, whether you want to call it that or not, that might be love.”
I take a deep breath. “Now. You should show me to my room. I’m feeling tired.”
He doesn’t argue with me.