Elena
After dropping the triplets at school and running errands all morning, I'm at my last stop, my cousin Dom’s place to help with the Christmas preparations.
It’s his year to host the annual Christmas party.
The La Corona meetings typically wrap up by eleven.
If I'm lucky, I've missed them all, especially Luca.
Luca Monti.
Even thinking his name makes my chest tight.
I've perfected the art of Luca-avoidance since his return from Italy nearly a year ago.
For six years, I only needed to do it at Christmas, but now… every La Corona family event requires that I be hyper-aware of him so I can be nowhere around him.
It's childish, I know.
But what am I supposed to do?
Circumstances require that no one know about our history.
No one can know about our three children.
I take a deep breath to push away the memories of our past.
For a moment, I thought we might have forever.
I’ll never forget how he’d look at me like I was his entire world.
But then everything shattered.
My father went to prison.
Luca was to blame.
Roberto pulls open the door before I reach for the handle, greeting me with a warm smile.
"Miss Elena! Come in, come in." He steps aside to give me room.
I step into the foyer, immediately scanning for signs of lingering council members. "The meeting's over, right?"
"Just finished, Miss." Roberto lowers his voice. "Ran longer than usual."
My muscles tense. If the meeting just ended, then…
The low murmur of male voices drifts from the direction of Dom's study.
My heart rate spikes.
I should leave.
But I can’t just walk out now.
I only just walked in.
“I’m going to be in the living room.”
“Yes, Don Vitale had staff bring down all the decorations.”
I hurry past him to get to the room before anyone from the meeting makes it to the foyer.
The massive tree stands naked in the corner of Dom's formal living room, waiting for its holiday transformation.
The staff has arranged everything perfectly, lights, ornaments, and garlands, all awaiting my direction.
But my mind isn't on Christmas decorations.
Now that thoughts of Luca have seeped in, they seem to want to stay.
It’s been seven years since my world imploded.
I’d have thought time and age would dull the shock of it all, but it hasn’t.
I was twenty-one, desperately in love with Luca Monti, and planning our future together.
Then my father was arrested in a setup by Luca.
Why would he do that?
Before I knew it, Luca was gone.
In Italy.
Probably to escape the wrath of the Vitale family.
At the time, I believed Luca was guilty.
How could I not?
The evidence pointed straight to him.
I screamed, I accused, I pushed him away.
And he left for Italy without a look back.
A month later, I discovered I was pregnant.
With triplets.
God, I’d never been so scared in my life.
“Miss Vitale.”
I look up to see Gio Sarto, one of Dom’s men.
He’s been around forever.
At one time, he and my father were friends.
“I see Don Vitale has pressed you into work.”
I smile. “I enjoy it.” Gio has never taken to Dom and the changes he’s made since becoming Don after his father’s death.
I think it’s a matter of the old guard not understanding the innovation and new ideas of the younger generation.
“Are the children here?” He glances around the room.
“Not this time. They’re at school. I figured I’d get the basics down, you know, the lights on the tree and the garlands up, and then have them over later for the other decorations.”
“Ah, yes. I remember when you were little coming over to decorate with your father.”
“Those are precious memories.” And they are.
My mother left my father when I was young, unable to cope with the life he lived.
So it was just me and my father growing up.
“Have you seen Don Vitale?”
I shake my head. “I understand his meeting took longer.”
“Ah. Right.” He glances down the hall toward Dom’s meeting room. “Do you suppose Don Monti is here? I understand he’s less and less involved.”
I shrug and turn my attention back to the ornaments. “I don’t know.”
“Don Vitale wouldn’t put up with having the boy that put his brother in prison—”
“Dom is the Don now,” I remind him. Dom never seemed to buy that Luca arranged for my father’s arrest.
It was his uncertainty that had me question everything that happened.
I don’t know the truth of it all, but one thing I feel certain of now is that Luca wasn’t behind it.
Gio nods. “Yes, of course. What I mean is that his father wouldn’t put up with that disrespect.” His hand flexes by his side. “But we’re not allowed—” He stops himself.
I don’t ask what he means because I know.
There are those in the Vitale family who’d still like to kill Luca out of duty to their former Don.
Only Dom stands in their way.
“Well… I should get to work.”
“Good to see you. Merry Christmas,” I say to him.
“Merry Christmas. Send my love to the kids.”
When he leaves, I blow out a breath.
Are all families so complicated?
Probably.
They just don’t have the added worries of violence.
I pull out a delicate angel ornament, its peaceful face reminding me of Adalina.
It makes me think of how big the kids are getting.
And how much they’re looking more and more like their father.
I place the angel back in its velvet-lined box.
Gio’s visit reminds me of why I’ve made the choices I have.
Why I continue to avoid Luca.
Not out of spite for his betrayal but to protect me and my children.
I’ll never forget the day I overheard Don Vitale asking Dom to find out what he knew about Luca’s private life.
Luca was already in Italy by then.
My father had just been killed in prison and Don Vitale blamed Luca for that, although I didn’t see how since he was a world away and didn’t have the power or influence needed to arrange it.
It was another tidbit that had me doubting the narrative around my father’s arrest and death.
I was staying in the Vitale mansion, brought here when my father was first arrested.
I was also grappling with an unplanned pregnancy that I hadn’t yet told anyone about.
“I’ve caved to La Corona’s mandate that we don’t touch Luca as long as he’s in Italy, but that doesn’t mean I can’t get revenge for my brother another way,” Don Vitale said to Dom.
“What are you thinking?” Dom asked him, sounding disinterested as he usually did with his father.
“Does he have girlfriends? Someone we can send him a message with.”
I swallowed as I understood his meaning.
He planned to kill someone close to Luca.
Would he include me?
Our baby?
Later, when I couldn’t hide my pregnancy any longer, Don Vitale threatened to kill me for disrespecting him.
Since my father’s death, I was his to control, but I’d ruined myself and my value to him.
Dom stepped in to protect me, found me a place to live and gave me work.
But I knew that Don Vitale’s hate for Luca and his disdain for me would put my children at risk if he ever found out Luca was their father.
They’d be the perfect target for his revenge.
When Don Vitale died, his men swore allegiance to Dom, including their vow to seek revenge against Luca.
I don’t know what Dom or La Corona worked out that Luca hasn’t been killed since returning to New York.
But Gio’s comments tell me they don’t like it.
And if he and the others still loyal to Dom’s father knew the truth about me and Luca, about the kids, I don’t know what they’d do.
I do know they’re still willing to kill for a Don who’s dead now.
So the secret stays to protect us all. But it’s getting harder and harder.
Not just because Luca is home, but because my kids keep asking.
"Mommy, why don't we have a daddy like everyone else?" Adalina asked just last week.
Elio nodded beside her, while Rocco pretended not to care, though I caught him listening intently for my answer.
I told them their daddy lived far away, a half-truth that won’t satisfy them for long.
“He doesn’t like us?” Adalina asked.
“Who needs a daddy, anyway?” Rocco blustered.
The lie protects us all. If Luca knew the truth, he'd have every right to hate me for keeping his children from him.
The triplets would be caught in a war between Montis and Vitales.
There are men who are still loyal to Dom’s father. Men who’d exact revenge for him even though he’s dead.
I lift a string of lights, mindlessly wrapping them around my hand, wondering how much time I have before everything blows up.
How can I protect my children from the fallout when it does?
An unmistakable deep voice with its subtle Italian accent speaks. "I can see myself out, Dom." Luca's voice carries through the hallway, and my entire body goes rigid.
I clutch the lights to me as I move around to the back of the tree. Maybe he’ll just head out the door.
He has no reason to stop by the living room.
The footsteps grow closer. “Hiding again?”
My eyes close as I’m found out. It’s annoying and embarrassing.
I step from around the tree, and there he is, Luca Monti, standing in the doorway like a vision from my past.
My heart performs gymnastics in my chest.
Even after all this time, my heart still pulls to him.
Quickly, I school my expression into dismissiveness to maintain my distance. “I’m decorating the tree.”
Silence stretches between us. I wish he’d leave. I wish he’d tell me he loved me. God, I’m such a mess.
"So," Luca says finally, sliding his hands into his pockets. "Dom’s recruited you as hostess?"
"I like to help. It’s what families do. The kids enjoy it too.”
His expression flickers at the mention of my children. Something like pain crosses his features before he masks it.
"How are they? Your… the triplets?" He clears his throat.
"Growing too fast."
He smiles, and I notice the small scar bisecting his left eyebrow that wasn't there before Italy.
His face has sharpened, lost the last traces of youth.
His boyish charm was replaced by something harder, more commanding.
He stands differently too, shoulders back, chin raised. Like a man who's stepped into power.
“How’s your father?” I ask, wondering why. I want him to leave.