Chapter 21 - Sienna
SIENNA
I ate another huge bite of tiramisu as I stared at the full contents of my closet lying on the floor.
Last night, after Dimitri abandoned me to the sharks, I’d fled to my apartment with the entire container of tiramisu tucked under my arm. I’d ignored the frantic knocks at my door and endless missed calls and texts because I couldn’t fucking handle it.
Over the past few weeks, I’d started getting excited about my future as a single mom with my sweet little Lemon.
I’d started building a nursery in CozyScape to test different design options for when I designed the real thing and had added my name to the same private Montessori preschool lists Clementine was on.
All of that was gone now. I had to leave my home to be under the control of the fucking Pakhan.
Dread sat heavy in my stomach as I flopped onto my bed.
I hadn’t slept all night. Instead, I’d wandered my apartment, pulling out everything from my closet, bathroom vanities, and pantry while I ate my way through the tiramisu.
The disaster zone of a bathroom and bedroom at least made sense because I needed to pack—I’d even dragged out the two suitcases I’d brought to Paris and the second I got a surge of energy, I would definitely unzip them—but I couldn’t quite come up with a convincing reason for organizing the pantry, except that it had seemed like an essential task at 4 a.m.
I dug the heels of my palms into my eye sockets. I was tangled up inside, caught in a storm of frustration and shame. How was it that I felt so competent while hacking, but like a complete failure in every other area of my life?
The sky grew pink outside the window as the sun peeked over the horizon. A phenomenon I did my best to never see. I groaned while I smacked around for my phone to check the time. When I freed it from the embrace of my fluffy comforter, Sofiya’s latest text popped up on the screen.
Sofiya
I’m just warning you that if you don’t answer Matteo’s calls in the next 5 mins, he will break down your door
Shit. She’d sent the text four minutes ago.
Part of me was tempted to just wait and see what happened, but my brother wasn’t one to make idle threats and breaking the door would probably be really loud, and I didn’t want to deal with that.
It took half a ring for him to answer.
“About fucking time. Sienna, what the fuck is going on?”
“Good morning to you.”
“Good morning? What do you mean, good morning? You ran out of here last night shouting, see you at the ceremony, and all you have to say for yourself is good morning?”
I heard a soft voice in the background and I’d bet a million dollars that it was Sofiya telling Matteo off for how he was talking to me.
“I’m sorry I ran out last night,” I said. “I was overwhelmed and needed space.” A ray of sunlight kissed the New York City skyline. “But honestly, there’s not much more to say. I didn’t know who he was in Paris and I don’t think he knew who I was, either. But here we are.”
“He’s not...he’s not safe, Sienna.” He sounded exhausted. Had he been up all night, too?
“He’s your brother-in-law, you have a political alliance, and I’m carrying his child. I’m not sure it would be in his best interest to harm me.”
I braced myself for Matteo to start yelling again, but his voice was quiet. Broken. “I can’t protect you if you’re with him.”
I bit my fist to keep from busting into tears. I’d never been a crier, yet here I was, transformed into a blubbering idiot and it was all baby Lemon’s fault.
Slow breaths. In through the mouth, out through the nose.
“I’ll be okay. I just...I know I’ve messed all of this up. But it’s not my baby’s fault. They deserve a father.” My voice cracked and Matteo swore.
“I’m coming down.”
“No.” If I saw my brother right now, there was no way I could hold myself together.
“I need to get ready. For the ceremony…and to move.” The lump in my throat strangled my words as I realized I would be leaving Matteo.
The two of us had been our own family unit for so long—the Rossi siblings against the world—but he had a new family, now.
One that he loved more than anything. He would be okay.
Matteo let out a frustrated huff, and I could hear the soft thud of his feet against his hardwood floors as he paced. The years of distance, of our struggle to talk and connect, stretched between us in the silence.
“I’m sorry I’ve created more trouble for you,” I finally said.
“You haven’t created trouble. It’s...you know I love you, right? I need you to be okay. Safe and happy.”
“I know that.” My jaw clenched as I breathed through the swell of emotion. “I really think this will be the best thing for me and the baby.”
“I will raze Chicago to the ground if he does anything to hurt you. Mark my words, Sienna. I will fucking do it.”
I pushed myself into a seated position, watching the changing sky, feeling my life change with it. “I know you would. I love you, too.”
Moments after we hung up, my phone alerted me that someone was at my door. I switched over to my surveillance app and exhaled when it revealed Sofiya, Noodle, and Angelo standing next to Dante.
I groaned. There was no getting out of this.
When I pulled the door open, Noodle looked thrilled to see me, Sofiya’s eyebrows were knitted with concern, and Angelo was scowling.
“Morning,” I said dryly, stepping to the side so Sofiya and Noodle could enter. “You staying in the hall?”
Angelo lifted his chin and watched in silence as I shut the door.
“He’s mad you stole the tiramisu,” Sofiya said. She removed Noodle’s work harness and the two of them cuddled up together on the couch.
“Ahh, yes.” Tiramisu was Angelo’s favorite, but he didn’t have to marry a man whose real name he’d known for all of twelve hours, so I didn’t feel guilty.
I also wondered if something else was going on with him. Something had seemed off with him for months.
I sat down beside Sofiya, curling my body around my knees like I could somehow shield my heart from today’s inevitable heartbreak.
“Did you sleep at all?” I asked.
She shook her head. “Matteo didn’t either.
Clementine, of course, slept straight through the night.
” She pursed her lips. One thing I’d learned in the months since Clem was born was that babies had an uncanny ability to select the absolute worst nights to sleep without waking…
and the worst ones to wake up a million times. “Gem came over early, so that’s good.”
Gem was Clementine’s nanny, and I had been planning to ask if she wanted to be my baby’s nanny, too.
The harsh reality that I’d have to raise my child away from all the support I’d expected to have punched me in the chest. Maybe there was some lie Dimitri and I could tell to explain why I had to spend long stretches of time in New York with my child.
Sofiya grabbed my hand and squeezed. Noodle, unwilling to ever be left out, placed his paw on top of our joined hands.
I stroked his soft little Grinch feet. “Thanks, Noodle.”
“I can’t believe I didn’t recognize him in Paris,” I said. “I feel so embarrassed.” If I’d recognized him, would I have kept my distance? Spent those last days in Paris alone? I wouldn’t be in this mess, but the thought of erasing those days, erasing my baby, from existence, made my chest twinge.
“There’s nothing to be embarrassed about.
He looks so different. I barely recognize him now.
” She pulled out her phone. “Actually, I tracked down some childhood pictures of us. There aren’t many.
” Her lips twisted, and I thought of the stacks of photo albums in the penthouse apartment above featuring hundreds of photos of Clem’s first nine months of life.
I’d had albums like that of me as a baby, captioned with my mom’s neat handwritten notes.
Most of them had been destroyed by my uncle and his traitor men, and it made me wonder how much of parenting was just desperately trying to redeem the pain of our childhoods by giving our kids everything we’d cherished when we were younger.
Sofiya handed me her phone, and my heart sped up.
A young boy with a shaved head sat on a wooden dining room chair, a baby in his arms. He looked directly into the camera with his bright blue eyes and a fierce scowl, like he dared the viewer to try and mess with his sister.
The baby was bundled up in a pink blanket and Dimitri’s hands, so much smaller than the ones that held me in Paris, protectively cradled Sofiya.
I studied his features, trying to find my future husband in his young face. His severe expression was familiar, but there was a boyish roundness to his cheeks that was absent in the man I knew.
I swiped to the next picture and smiled when I saw Dimitri holding an older baby, who was the spitting image of Clementine.
“Wow, Matteo’s genes barely tried.”
Sofiya grinned. “I think he probably commanded them to step aside so our girl would look like me.”
“Is this at your house?” Dimitri and baby Sofiya stood outside in a sunny garden. Dimitri looked at the camera with a serious expression once again, but this time, Sofiya was looking at her brother, head thrown back in laughter.
The third photo featured a toddler Sofiya sitting in Dimitri’s lap. She was beaming as her chubby arms wrapped around a dark-haired newborn, while the boy looked as hardened as ever.
Noodle nudged my hand to urge me to keep petting him, and I absentmindedly stroked his soft ears.
“He was forced to go to Russia about a year after this picture was taken,” Sofiya said softly. “He barely came home after that, but the few times he visited, it felt like Christmas. All I wanted was my brother.”