Chapter 10 #2
“All right,” she said gently. “Give me one minute.”
She disappeared briefly, and I heard the faint clink of glass, the muffled sound of a cupboard door, then her voice somewhere off-screen telling one of the staff that she was done for the evening unless the house caught fire.
A moment later she returned with a generous pour of red wine and settled herself at the kitchen island as if preparing for a strategy meeting.
Which, in her own way, she was.
“Now,” she said, folding one arm on the counter and looking at me with dangerous patience. “Tell me what happened.”
I exhaled. “You’re very certain something did.”
“Pietro.” One red brow arched. “You are video calling me from Boston at nine o’clock on a weekday. Something happened.”
Despite myself, the corner of my mouth moved.
“That is offensive.”
“It is accurate.”
I looked down at my phone, then back at her.
“I think I made a mistake tonight.”
Her expression did not change, except for something flickering in her eyes.
“With Emily?”
I froze.
My mother’s smile deepened, smug.
“You know about Emily?”
The question sounded foolish the moment it left my mouth. I knew better than most that privacy in our world was often little more than a carefully managed illusion.
“Of course I do,” she said. “I didn’t know who she was at first, but I know my son. The moment you came home for that meeting with New York, I knew you were smitten.”
Heat crawled up my neck hearing how transparent I had been.
“Why didn’t you say anything?”
She lifted one shoulder and took a small sip of wine. “I was waiting for you to come to me.”
I saw the faint sadness beneath her smile and felt, for the first time, genuinely cowardly for it.
“Who told you?”
“Aunt Violet.”
My mother smiled slightly over the rim of her glass. “You should know by now that your uncle doesn’t keep secrets from her unless it would put her in danger. That’s their rule.”
I nodded quietly. It was the unspoken rule between them. Between my parents too. Secrets had done enough damage in this family already. Even if I did not know every detail of what had once happened between Hoka and Violet, I knew enough to understand that lies had nearly destroyed them.
“I didn’t tell you because…” I stopped. Because what? I wasn’t entirely sure any reason I gave would sound good enough.
My mother’s expression softened. “I understand, Pietro. I really do. This isn’t easy, and it won’t be easy for her either.” She took another sip of wine before continuing. “The thing is, you’ve already brought her into our world.”
I opened my mouth at once, but she lifted a hand to stop me.
“I know you didn’t mean to. But you are your father’s heir, whether you like hearing it or not, and people notice you. They know you. When you take the same girl to family-owned restaurants more than once, people talk. Eventually that talk makes its way back to your father. And to Matteo.”
I winced. My father was one thing. Matteo Genovese, sociopathic capo di tutti capi, was another entirely.
My mother waved that away with surprising ease. “Don’t worry about Matteo right now. Your father has vouched for you, and Hoka…” She smiled faintly. “Well. Let’s just say Hoka has vouched for you too.”
I looked at her. “So you all knew and discussed it behind my back?”
I heard the irritation in my own voice and disliked how young it made me sound, but not enough to take it back.
“We wouldn’t have to if you were honest and talked to us.” She didn’t mean it as a reprimand. That was the worst part.
It landed like one anyway, sharp enough to drag me straight back to thirteen, raw with pride and convinced every hard truth was a judgment.
“It got out of hand,” I admitted. “At first I was only curious. Then she made me feel…different.”
My mother laughed. “A familiar story.”
I looked at her. “It is?”
She let out a small sigh, though there was affection in it.
“You really need to talk to your father and your uncle. I think you’ll find more kinship there than you expect.
” She paused, then added dryly, “Although please ignore them if either of them suggests kidnapping. That seems to have been the preferred solution for far too many men in this family, and I feel obligated to remind you it is more than frowned upon.”
I scoffed quietly. “I’m well aware. Abduction is Matteo’s answer to everything.”
The faint amusement left my face almost as quickly as it had come. “And I know I need to talk to them. But this isn’t about me. Not right now, at least. It’s about her, and I feel…” I exhaled. “Conflicted.”
My mother’s expression gentled. “About bringing her into this life.”
It wasn’t a question.
I nodded.
“That’s good,” she said quietly. “It means you understand what you’re asking.”
"I know what I should do. I should let her be. But I can't, and I can't take more from her without being honest first." I exhaled. "Once she knows, she'll be on Matteo's radar. There's no coming back from that."
"That's true," she said. Then, more gently: "But she must be something special to have you this attached. You've never been the type."
"She's spectacular."
Mom leaned on her elbow and rested her chin in her hand. “I can’t wait to meet her. I wish there were a formula, a perfect way to say if you should or not, but there isn’t. The only thinking to rely on is faith. Your dad and I, well the choice was taken from us.”
It was an understatement. When she worked for him and witnessed him taking out a traitor, it was either kill her or take her away.
“Ask your uncle. He told Violet the truth. It was his choice.”
I sighed. “He’ll come back with some infuriating piece of wisdom that I’ll hate and that will, inevitably, be right.”
“He will,” she said. “But at the end of the day, Pietro, wisdom only takes you so far.”
She turned her wine glass slowly between her palms, looking down at it for a moment before lifting her eyes back to mine. “Can I tell you something true? Not as your mother. Just as someone who has been where she’s about to be.”
I said nothing, which she took as permission.
“When I found out what your father really was, it didn’t feel like a revelation,” she said quietly. “It felt like something clicking into place that I had already half known.”
She paused.
“I was angry with him. Scared. I felt betrayed. But if I’m honest, I was even angrier with myself, because I knew.
I had seen enough. And on some level, I had still chosen to stand by his side.
That made me question everything I thought I knew about myself.
My morals. My sense of justice. The way I understood right and wrong.
All of it had to be rewritten, and that takes time. ”
“That sounds like a warning,” I said.
“It is,” she replied simply. “Not against telling her. Against assuming that once you tell her the truth, you’ve done the hard part.” She took a small sip of wine. “The truth is only the beginning, Pietro. What comes after is the what decides everything.”
I said nothing.
She went on, her voice as steady as ever. “She has to choose this with full knowledge of what she’s choosing. Not because you make it sound manageable. Not because she loves you. Because she has looked at it and decided it is worth it anyway.”
“And if she doesn’t?” I asked, hating how even my voice remained.
"Then you let her go," she said. "And you do not make her feel foolish for it."
"Let her go..." Even the words tasted poisonous.
My mother’s mouth curved with something softer, sadder.
“Would he have ever let you go?” I asked.
She gave me a small sideways smile. “You don’t remember, but he did.”
Before I could ask what she meant, a shadow moved behind her. My father came into frame without warning, crouching behind her chair and dropping a kiss to her temple as naturally as breathing. One of his hands settled possessively on her shoulder, and the look he gave her was indecent.
Then he looked at me.
“Good. My son is alive.” His eyes flicked briefly to the wine in my mother’s hand, then back to my face. “Stop stealing my wife’s time. I need her.”
I stared at him. “Your wife is my mother.”
“Yes,” he said, entirely untroubled. “But based on the wine and your tragic expression, you now have your own woman to charm.” One dark brow lifted. “Try to make me proud.”
“That is a terrible way to phrase?—”
The call disconnected before I could finish.
I looked at my dark screen, then let out a breath that was half disbelief and half reluctant amusement.
Even now, after all these years, they were impossible.
Somewhere under my mother's warning and my father's arrogance, the truth remained. Emily would either know me or lose me. And I would have to be man enough to survive whatever answer she gave me.