Chapter 14 Alessandro #2
I can already feel the tension radiating from her as we walk into the dining room, and my stomach clenches with dread.
The dining room has been set with the good China, fresh flowers, all the touches that suggest Bella hoped this might be a reconciliation.
The twins are in their high chairs, babbling happily, Giovanni banging a spoon against his tray while Arianna tries to feed herself with mixed success.
“Bianca,” Bella says warmly as we enter, moving to embrace her. “I’m so glad you came.”
Bianca accepts the hug with polite stiffness, the kind of distant courtesy she might show a business acquaintance. “Bella. Thank you for having us.”
The formality in her tone makes Bella step back, confusion flickering across her face.
My stomach flip flops. Bella’s done nothing wrong.
She’s been nothing but loving to Bianca for years, but she’s about to become collateral damage in this war between father and daughter.
“How are your online classes?” Matteo asks as we settle around the table, his voice carefully neutral, as the first course is served.
“Fine,” Bianca replies as she cuts her food into small pieces. “Columbia’s academic standards remain challenging but manageable.”
Christ.
She’s talking to him like he’s a stranger asking about the weather.
I’ve heard her gush about her professors to me and seen her excitement about her coursework.
I’ve listened to her complain about difficult assignments and nosey professors.
But for Matteo, she offers nothing but clinical reporting.
I shift uncomfortably in my seat, watching Matteo’s jaw tighten almost imperceptibly.
He’s trying so hard, and she’s systematically dismantling every attempt.
“Are you still enjoying your Strategic Management course?”
Bless him, he’s still trying.
“It’s adequate for my purposes,” comes the short reply.
God, this is so bad I want to scream.
I also want to intervene, to tell her she’s going too far, but I know it would only make things worse.
This is something she needs to work through, even if watching it feels like witnessing a slow-motion car crash.
The conversation continues this way throughout the first course.
Matteo asking gentle questions about her life, Bianca responding with the minimum courtesy required while avoiding any trace of warmth or familiarity.
She addresses him as “Matteo” consistently, never once slipping into the “Dad” that had been natural for her whole life.
Each time she says his name instead of “Dad,” I see his eyes tighten.
It’s like she’s driving a knife deeper with every word.
“Banca!” Arianna calls out from her high chair, reaching toward her with sauce-covered fingers. “Banca, up!”
For just a moment, I see something soften in Bianca’s expression as she looks at her niece—or rather, what she now knows is her niece rather than her sister.
But instead of the warm response Arianna is used to, Bianca simply nods politely.
“Hello, Arianna. You’re certainly messy.”
The formal tone confuses the toddler, who tilts her head and tries again. “Banca play?”
“Perhaps another time,” Bianca replies, turning her attention back to her plate.
Fuck. I watch Arianna’s face crumple slightly with confusion, and my heart breaks for this innocent child who doesn’t understand why her beloved “Banca” is suddenly treating her like a stranger.
Bella’s face falls at the rejection, and I watch Matteo’s hands still on his silverware.
Giovanni, sensing the tension even at eighteen months old, grows quiet and stares at Bianca with wide eyes.
“The children have missed you,” Bella says softly, trying to bridge the growing distance. “They keep asking for you. I know they want to know when you’re coming home.”
“This isn’t my home anymore,” Bianca responds in a clipped tone. “I have my own place now. More appropriate for someone of my age and circumstances.”
Her words have their intended effect.
Bella’s eyes fill with tears and Matteo stills.
Even the staff moving around the dining room seem to sense the tension, their movements becoming more cautious.
Each word is carefully chosen to cut, to establish distance, to reject the family bonds that Matteo is desperately trying to maintain.
She’s not shouting or throwing accusations—she’s doing something much more cruel.
She’s treating them like strangers.
“Bianca,” Matteo says quietly, and there’s a note of pleading in his voice that makes me want to flee. “Please. Whatever anger you’re carrying, don’t take it out on Bella and the children. They love you.”
“Love requires honesty, doesn’t it?” Bianca looks directly at him for the first time all evening. “And since honesty has been in such short supply in this family, perhaps it’s better to maintain appropriate boundaries.”
Goddamn, this doesn’t even sound like her.
She sounds like a forty-year-old woman.
She’s nineteen and furious and using every weapon in her arsenal to protect herself from being hurt again.
I understand what she’s doing, but watching it play out is fucking excruciating.
The words hit their target perfectly, and the only reaction from Matteo is the tightening of his hand on his fork.
My hands clench under the table.
Part of me wants to tell her to stop.
Doesn’t she see that she’s going too far and hurting people who genuinely love her?
But another part of me recognizes that this is her way of processing devastating betrayal—by rejecting them before they can reject her, by establishing control when everything else in her life has been revealed as manipulation.
The remainder of the meal passes in increasingly uncomfortable silence.
Bianca answers direct questions with minimal responses, ignores attempts at warmth, and maintains the kind of polite distance that’s somehow more devastating than open hostility would be.
I barely taste my food, too focused on the emotional carnage playing out around the table.
Every careful question from Matteo, every gentle attempt from Bella, every confused look from the twins—it all feels like watching the DeLuca family fracture before my very eyes.
When dessert is served—tiramisu, which I know is actually her favorite—she takes a single bite before setting down her spoon.
“Thank you for dinner,” she says, standing gracefully. “Alessandro and I should be going.”
“You barely touched your food,” Bella protests, hazel eyes pleading. “And we haven’t really had a chance to talk—”
“There’s nothing to discuss,” Bianca replies with cold finality. “I appreciate the hospitality, but I think it’s best if we maintain some distance while everyone adjusts to the new family dynamics.”
She bends down to brush a kiss across each twin’s forehead in a gesture that looks affectionate but feels perfunctory, then she straightens without making eye contact with Matteo.
“Good evening, Matteo. Bella.”
And then she’s gone, leaving behind a family dinner that feels like a funeral.
The silence that follows her departure is deafening and I’m frozen in my seat.
Bella stares at the doorway with tears in her eyes, clearly shaken by the complete transformation of Bianca.
The twins sense the tension and begin to fuss, picking up on emotions they can’t understand.
“I’m-I’m going to go,” I say lamely as I get up from my chair, the legs screeching against the hardwood floors, and rush to the door.
But it’s Matteo’s reaction that stops me cold a few feet away from freedom.
The man who commands fear and respect from the most dangerous people in New York, who’s faced down rivals and federal investigators with unwavering composure, who’s made life-and-death decisions at the drop of a hat—this man slowly covers his face and breaks down completely.
The sound that escapes him isn’t quite a sob, but it’s close.
His shoulders shake as nineteen years of love and protection and careful choices crash against the reality that he’s lost the daughter who meant everything to him.
Not to death, not to violence, but to his own well-intentioned deceptions.
“She’s gone,” he whispers, and his voice breaks on the words. “She’s really gone.”
“Oh Matteo.” Bella moves to him immediately, her own tears forgotten as she wraps her arms around her husband.
But even her comfort can’t touch the depth of his grief.
I stand there watching this powerful man reduced to raw anguish, and I finally understand the true cost of the choices made nineteen years ago.
Not the political implications or the strategic consequences, but the human price of loving someone enough to lie to them, only to lose them when the truth finally surfaces.
Some wounds, I realize, cut deeper than any physical violence our world can inflict. Some losses hurt more than death itself.
The man who raised Bianca DeLuca is learning that the hardest part of loving someone isn’t protecting them from the world.
It’s accepting that sometimes your protection becomes the very thing that drives them away.