Chapter 44 Jenna
The next morning…
Breakfast is already cleared when the tutor arrives.
Amauri is thrilled at first—someone new, someone who treats him like he's fascinating—but I can tell he's still a little off, still recalibrating after everything.
I hover longer than I mean to, smoothing his hair, kissing his temple, watching him settle with the quiet intensity he gets when he's trying to be brave.
Massimo watches from the doorway, arms folded, unreadable.
He looks up as I approach and says, "I don't want this to be permanent. Just for now."
I keep my voice low so Amauri won't hear. The tutor is already engaging him. "I had no idea you did this. And I appreciate it. I really do."
Massimo's gaze doesn't waver. He's listening.
I don't want to seem bitchy, "But, there's one thing that needs to be clear between us.
" Something in his expression shifts, not anger, not resistance.
Attention. "You don't get to make decisions about our son without talking to me first," I state calmly. "Not even good ones."
His jaw tightens, but he doesn't interrupt.
"I know your instincts are to protect," I go on. "And I'm grateful for that. But Amauri isn't a territory to secure or a problem to solve. He's our child. And I need to be part of every choice that affects him."
For a heartbeat, the room feels very small. Then Massimo exhales slowly, like he's recalibrating rather than retreating.
"You're right," he agrees after a pause. The words carry more weight than any argument would have. "I didn't mean to cut you out," he adds. "I saw a risk and moved."
"I realize that," I concede softly. "That's why I'm saying this now. Before it becomes a habit."
He studies my face, searching for accusation, for fear. Finding neither.
"You won't have to remind me again," he nods. "We decide together."
Something in my chest loosens at that.
"Thank you," I reply.
He steps closer, lowering his voice further. "I'm still learning how to do this," he admits. "How to be… more than just the man who fixes things after they break."
I meet his eyes. "So am I."
From the table, Amauri looks up again. "Are you done talking?"
Massimo's mouth curves. "Sorry, bud."
Amauri nods, satisfied, and goes back to his work. Massimo takes my arm and directs me to his office to give Amauri and the tutor some privacy.
"Well, I guess now would be the time to tell you that I pulled some strings and enrolled Amauri in the best private school in the valley."
I stare at him.
"Private. Smaller. Better security." He keeps talking.
I turn to face him fully. "His school is private."
"Not enough," he counters immediately. "I've looked into it."
Of course he has.
"His friends are there," I argue. "His routine. He's already been uprooted enough."
Massimo exhales through his nose. "His classmates are the sons and daughters of politicians."
I lift a brow. "And?"
"That makes them targets."
I cross my arms. "What's so bad about a politician's daughter?" I ask, cool and deliberate.
He opens his mouth. Then closes it. We stare at each other for a beat, and I can almost see the gears turning as he realizes he's walked straight into it.
"I'm one," I add mildly.
His mouth quirks despite himself. "You're not exactly a selling point for your argument."
I snort. "I survived."
"That's not the standard I aim for," he counters.
"I know," I reply. "But Amauri needs more than safety. He needs continuity. People who knew him before all of this."
Massimo studies me for a long moment, weighing risk against something he's still learning how to value.
"Let me increase security," he negotiates. "Quietly. No uniforms. No disruption."
I consider it. Then nod. "That's… reasonable." I have no idea how the school will feel about that, but I imagine a large donation will keep any objections under closed lids.
He steps closer, lowers his voice. "We revisit this if the ground shifts."
"When," I correct gently.
A beat. Then he nods again. "When."
Massimo shifts, and the air between us changes.
"Have you decided," he asks evenly, "what to do with your father?"
I still. The question lands harder than I expected it to, like it's been waiting for me to stop moving long enough to catch up. I look past him, toward a painting on the wall.
"I…" My voice falters. I clear my throat. "I don't have that kind of power."
Massimo steps closer. Gently—always gentle with me—he takes my chin between his fingers and tilts my face up until I'm forced to meet his eyes.
"You have me," he reminds me quietly. "And through me, all the power in the world." There's no arrogance in it. Just fact. "Say it," he adds. "And it will be done."
My heart starts to race.
I swallow hard. "I don't want him to die."
The words surprise me with how much they hurt to say. Because the truth is—I do. And I don't. I want him punished. Exposed. Stripped of the authority he used to bend my life into something unrecognizable. I want him to know what he took from me. From us.
But he's still Amauri's grandfather.
I'm already standing on the edge of one impossible conversation, already trying to figure out how to explain that the man Amauri called Dad is gone. Forever. How to frame that kind of absence without breaking something fragile inside my son. I can't add another body to that reckoning.
"I don't want his blood on Amauri," I say softly. "I don't want my son growing up with that kind of legacy hanging over him."
Massimo doesn't let go of my chin. His thumb brushes my jaw, grounding, steady.
Emotions move over his face I can't read, but there is something like recognition and realization.
This father role, this responsibility, is new for him too, and he has to figure out how to navigate it against his killer instincts.
"What do you want," he asks, slower now, "instead?"
I close my eyes for a second, letting the answer take shape.
"I want him removed," I say. "From power.
From influence. From my life." I open my eyes again.
"I want him to live long enough to see everything he built taken apart.
Quietly. Legally. Completely." A pause. "And," I add, voice barely above a whisper, "I want him to never be able to speak to Amauri again. "
Massimo studies me, not for weakness but for resolve. When he nods, it's once. Decisive.
"Done," he agrees.
No qualifiers. No conditions. Relief and grief crash together in my chest, messy and overwhelming. I lean into him without thinking, pressing my forehead to his shoulder, breathing him in.
This is the hardest choice I've ever made. But it's mine.