Chapter 17
Chapter Seventeen
Anton
“So, what do you think, Papa?” Anya asks, squirming in her regular deck seat.
Instead of our typical small talk after she’s finished her breakfast and I continue to sip on my coffee, my daughter surprised me with a full casual presentation-like speech. Several straight minutes of words about a topic I didn’t even know were up for discussion.
She’s just finished laying out an elaborate series of plans and backup plans in the event that the Moretti boy comes to our territory to visit her. What would happen if she couldn’t handle it, and a handful of different escape routes for her to take in several different scenarios.
I should have known that Anya would be bringing up something significant after her therapist pulled me aside to talk after their session yesterday night.
She gave me vague warnings about being gentle with my daughter if she comes to speak with me.
To let her finish voicing her thoughts before I react to the words she shares.
She told me that it’s imperative that I allow Anya to take her time to explain herself, and that all is well.
Now that my daughter has put it all out there, I don’t know whether to be terrified, or relieved.
I’m glad that she’s been able to work out what she needs to be comfortable in therapy, but I’m hesitant to agree to her plans.
It’s evident that she’s already spoken to Matteo about these possibilities, as she assured me over and over again (without probing on my part) that the boy wouldn’t be insulted or upset if she needed to leave abruptly when they meet again.
It makes things more difficult for me, hearing how seemingly patient and accommodating he is with her.
On one hand, I should expect nothing less.
I’d want his head slashed off his shoulders if he was anything other than a perfect gentleman towards her.
But on the other hand, it makes me uncomfortable when I think about his possible motives for acting in such a way.
He says he only seeks her friendship, but I find it hard to believe that he’s not half in love with her already.
They talk on the phone constantly, and now they’re discussing him coming to visit much sooner than I would have expected.
The wedding wasn’t too long ago, and it seems that in a matter of weeks, the two of them have become inseparable.
“Dad?” Anya whispers, her soft hand landing on top of mine to get my attention. “Can you say something? Please?”
“I’m processing,” I reply gruffly. “I didn’t know you were thinking about meeting him so soon—” Or at all.
“Well, we don’t know if it will be soon,” she interrupts with a wince. Twisting her hands in her lap, she adds, “We’re planning for the future, whether it comes soon or months from now.”
The future in the context of discussing Matteo Moretti makes the hair on my arms stand up. I’ve decided that he’s earned a chance to get into my good graces, but I still don’t trust that he won’t try and steal my daughter away one day.
“And you spoke with Tiffany about this?” I confirm in an airy question. “So you could decide how best to approach the prospect?”
“She brought up the idea of backup plans,” Anya agrees, retracting her hand and nodding to herself.
“She brought up how I felt so much more comfortable going to the wedding knowing that Uncle Lev would get me out of there if I needed it. She said that I don’t always need to use a way out, but sometimes it’s nice to just know there is one.
Feeling trapped can make anxiety worsen, and I can’t feel trapped if there’s always an exit plan. ”
It’s sound logic, but the idea of her needing an exit strategy makes my stomach twist. I want to say that I’d throttle the boy for making her so uncomfortable that she needs to flee, but Anya has been shaken by the most random things in the past.
One day only a few months ago she needed her emergency medicine because she woke up with a headache and was convinced it was going to kill her. A tumor or a sign of some other impending doom, but in reality, it was from a difficult night’s sleep.
Sometimes everyday life can be hard for my Anya, and if Matteo has agreed that she can abandon their visit at any given time without explanation, I doubt he’s going to do anything to push her in that direction.
“Do you hope that he visits soon?” I ask, searching her face for the answer before she can give it.
“I don’t know,” she replies, biting her lip with a flush spreading to her cheeks. “I think it could be nice to see him again, but I still feel weird about it.”
I want to jump at the chance to suggest if she feels odd about it, that she shouldn’t do it. Lev would do just that. But I’m not her overprotective brute of an uncle, I’m her father. I have to hold back my instinctive reactions so that I don’t upset her.
“Weird how?” I ask instead.
She hesitates.
“You can tell me, dochen’ka,” I encourage, trying to offer a soft smile to show her I mean it.
“I just…I don’t know, it seems like it would sound silly out loud.”
I don’t push further, waiting for her to go on if she wishes. And she does.
“I don’t know if he’ll enjoy visiting,” she admits quietly.
“I don’t do anything outside of the house, and he’s so adventurous.
He goes everywhere, all the time. He takes the twins to story time at the library, he visits his guard’s families on weekends sometimes, and he goes to local restaurants where people know him by name.
He goes shopping with his brother Armani, to the store with their chef Martha, and goes for runs with Yordan. ”
“The Todorov kid?”
I’d heard that the Moretti family took the Bulgarian mafia wards from The Casa Nostra the night of Dmitri’s wedding. Lev had seen it when Apollo, Cassio, and Yordan emerged from the ocean without the man married to Yordan’s older sister.
Abuse of a woman will always be disgusting in my eyes, but in the presence of Morettis? It’s not only vile, but it’s stupid beyond belief. They have a reputation for not letting that slide, ever.
“Yeah,” Anya agrees, nodding along. “Apollo is mentoring him now and Matteo says they’ve become friendly. He’s apparently quite a good kid, very interested in becoming a good made man.”
I hum, taking in the information.
“But back to my point,” she trails off for a moment, shaking her head.
“I just don’t know, Papochka. I don’t want him to visit and then never want to come here again because I’ve made it so boring and uncomfortable.
I like our friendship, but what if he doesn’t want to be friends when he realizes how dull my life can be? ”
“If he doesn’t want to be your friend anymore after spending time with you here, then he’s not the boy you’ve been describing to me,” I tell her firmly, feeling like my heart might break at her worries.
“Good friends could have nothing better to do than watching paint dry and still enjoy each other’s company in the process. ”
Anya frowns, looking lost. “I-I guess.”
“Does he not know of your routines? Has he not only ever seen you in your home while you do your little FaceChats?”
“FaceTime,” she mumbles, hiding a smile at my mistake.
“Whatever you kids are calling it,” I reply with a huff.
“My point is, Matteo already knows that you prefer to stay home. He already knows what you do for fun. If you don’t feel up to leaving the house at all, then you’ll stay here.
You’ll share a meal, walk the gardens, take him on a tour of the house, I don’t know.
My point is, the boy is fully aware of your limitations, and he still wants to come, doesn’t he? ”
“I guess so,” she says, exhaling slowly. “You won’t be mean to him if he comes, will you?”
A low chuckle rumbles in my chest. “Well, that’s another topic entirely, isn’t it dochen’ka?”
She gives me an unimpressed look, pursing her lips. “You shouldn’t be mean to guests, Papa. It’s not very good manners.”
“Scolded by my own flesh and blood,” I comment, smothering a laugh. “I feel like you’re six years old and reminding me to lift my pinky at your tea party table.”
“Only Ivan ever did it without prompting,” Anya says, a small nostalgic smile lifting her lips. “You and Dmitri were very poor tea party guests. You never put your napkins on your laps either.”
“The napkins were the size of your smallest plates,” I point out in protest. “There were tissues larger than those little things, they would fall right off our legs if we put them on more than one thigh.”
“You could have bought me bigger ones,” she replies stubbornly.
“I tried!” I insist, laughing at the memory. “I could never find the exact pattern you wanted. Your tea set was no longer being made, and no matter how hard I tried, I couldn’t get anyone to replicate the cloth napkins in a bigger size.” Or at all, really.
Anya giggles, eyes sparkling. “I didn’t know that. I’m surprised to hear that there was something that Anton Morozov, Pakhan, couldn’t get done, though.”
“And your uncles never let me hear the end of it either. Any time Lev sees a pink pattern even remotely similar, or uses a cloth napkin, I swear he gives me this look.”
He’s such an ass.
“You should have made them try to find it so they could understand your struggle,” Anya teases. Then suddenly, her smile becomes shy. “I’ve missed talking to you like this, Papochka.”
My heart gives a painful beat at her confession, and I dip my head in agreement.
“I have as well, dochen’ka. It makes me so happy to know that you feel comfortable sharing more of yourself with me again.
I’ve waited a long time to see you smile, and I have to begrudgingly admit that since the wedding, you’ve been doing so much more of it. ”
“I feel more alive now,” she murmurs, looking down at her lap.
“I think being around all those people was hard, and God, I don’t want to do it again any time soon…
but I can see how it might have sparked something in me.
A reminder that life goes on around me while I’m hiding from it, and that maybe I want to be done missing it. ”
“Did being surrounded by so many people remind you of that, or was it meeting Matteo that did it?”
Her face going red should be the only answer I need, but she speaks up anyway.
“Matteo made me feel like a regular girl again, for only a few minutes, maybe even a few seconds. But it was eye-opening. I don’t think just meeting him once, and sharing a short dance would have done it alone, though. Bringing me the twins…it was the thing that really shocked me into the present.”
“You think?” I ask, surprised.
“They’re a year old,” she states softly.
“It was so obvious how long they’d been living and growing.
They weren’t tiny fragile newborns, but sturdy one-year-olds with blooming personalities and clearer emotions.
And it was so evident to me how much of their lives I missed. It broke my heart, honestly.”
“They won’t remember that you were ever missing,” I tell her honestly. “They’re still very young. All of their memories from childhood that they keep will include you.”
“I’ll remember,” she says with a shake of her head. “I’ll remember that I never called Dmitri when they were born, or even texted him. I’ll remember that Cesar has Ivan’s name as his middle while his mother had never even met me. That to this day she still hasn’t properly met me.”
“Do you want to change that?”
“Of course I do,” she answers immediately, almost snapping. “But I don’t know how to do that without making her feel like I’m putting her between me and Dmitri. Would she even want to talk to me if I don’t talk to him?”
“She would.” I don’t know her well, but I know her enough to know that.
“I—what?” Anya stutters. “Why do you say that?”
“Ask Matteo,” I advise. “He’ll tell you the same thing. Your brother’s wife…she has a big heart. She cares for her family and friends and wants to keep them all close. I’m sure she wants to know you, especially since she’ll be living here in the future.”
Anya considers that, playing with her hands as she thinks. “Maybe I’ll ask Matteo about it.”
“You should.”
“And about Matteo visiting?”
“If you want it to happen, we’ll make it work.”
Even if I can already feel my hair graying just thinking about it.