LUCA MORETTI
She fell asleep in my lap at nine thirty at night.
I didn't have the heart to get up. I stayed in the armchair, with her on top of me, her hair spread across my chest, her breathing slowing with every minute.
I put her hand over my tattoo.
Mors potius macula.
I'd had those words inked at nineteen, at my mother's funeral, swearing I'd never be the kind of man she'd hated in her husband.
A man who deals out pain. A man who deals out calculated pain to the woman who's slept in his bed.
I'd come close to breaking that promise two weeks ago, in the pantry, in the dark, with whiskey in the glass.
But I didn't break it.
I went to Rome and came back.
And this woman had fallen asleep on top of me without fear, with her dead mother's letter still folded in its envelope on my study desk, after asking me to kill her father.
For the first time in twenty years as Don, I thought something that made no sense:
I have to be better for her than I've been for anyone in my life. Or her mother's prophecy comes true.
I kissed the top of her head.
"Bella mia," I whispered, low, to her as she slept. "I'm not going to lose you."
Her hand tightened a little against my chest, and I turned off the lamp.
And for the second time in twenty years, I slept with a woman on top of me.