Chapter 15 #2
I listened anyway. She was charming and terrifying and so obviously adored that it was impossible not to be won over by her.
“And this one,” she said, holding up a doll in an elaborate blue dress, “is my favorite, but only when Pietro isn’t here because then he says I’m neglecting the others.”
I laughed. “He actually says that?”
“He has a lot of opinions.”
“That,” I said gravely, “I believe.”
Victoria narrowed her eyes at me with sudden curiosity. “Are you staying forever?”
The question hit so fast I almost laughed from the force of it.
“I’m just visiting right now.”
She seemed to consider that answer and find it disappointing.
“Well,” she said at last, “you should probably stay longer. Mom likes you already.”
“And you?”
She shrugged, as if trying not to reveal too much too soon. “I’m still deciding.”
“Terrifying,” Lily said from the doorway.
I turned and found her leaning there, smiling in a way that made it immediately clear she had come to rescue me, or at least to give me an honorable exit route if I needed one.
“Mom,” Victoria gasped, scandalized. “I was bonding.”
“You were interrogating,” Lily corrected. “And Emily may want a drink before you recruit her.”
Victoria crossed her arms. “Fine. But she can come back.”
Lily’s eyes met mine, amused and warm all at once. “That sounds very much like an invitation.”
“It sounds a little like a command,” I said.
Lily laughed. “Yes, that too.”
Then she held out a hand in welcome.
“Come on, sweetheart,” she said. “Before she decides to show you the entire house and claim you permanently.”
As I followed her back toward the stairs, with Victoria calling after us about ranking methodologies and Pietro’s many failings as an audience, I found that some of the fear I’d carried into the house had begun, slowly and against all reason, to dissipate.
“Thank you for inviting me into your home,” I said as we reached the landing. “I really do appreciate that it might be difficult to have a stranger here.”
Lily looked at me with fondness. “You’re not a stranger. You’re Emily.”
She linked her arm through mine as if it were the most natural thing in the world. “And I can see how much you love him.”
Heat rushed into my face so fast it was almost painful. I still wasn’t used to people saying things like that out loud, and for one terrible second the only thought that flashed through my head was, mafia wife, mafia wife.
Lily bumped my shoulder lightly. “Don’t be afraid. We don’t bite.”
“No,” I said before I could stop myself. “You shoot.”
I winced the moment the joke left my mouth.
Lily laughed. Really laughed. “That’s a good one. I’m telling Sandro later.”
“Oh no. Please don’t.”
She let out a soft sigh, though her smile stayed. “My husband can be intimidating, and in many ways he must be. But he’s also a loving man, and a fair one.” She squeezed my arm gently. “You love our Pietro, and he loves you. Sandro would never hurt you for that.”
She led me the rest of the way downstairs and into the kitchen, which managed to be both enormous and warm at once.
Copper pans hung above the island. Someone had left a loaf of bread cooling on the far counter.
A vase of fresh flowers sat near the sink in a way that felt domestic rather than decorative, as if beauty here had never been an afterthought.
Lily waved me toward a stool. “Sit. Let me get you tea, or wine, or something stronger if my family has already overwhelmed you beyond repair.”
I smiled as I sat. “Tea’s good.”
She put the kettle on with the ease of someone who had done this a thousand times before, then turned back to me and leaned lightly against the opposite side of the island.
“Pietro may have told you I’m not his biological mother,” she said.
I didn’t hesitate. “You’re his mother in every way that matters.”
For a second she just looked at me.
“Thank you,” she said quietly. “That means more than you know.”
I looked down at my hands. “It’s true.”
Her smile came back, gentler now. “You know, for a historian, you have very good instincts about family.”
“That is the first time anyone has complimented my instincts while I’m standing in a mafia kitchen.”
“Get used to disappointment,” she said lightly. “There are many unusual experiences still ahead of you.”
I laughed, and the sound had barely left me when voices drifted in from the hall.
Pietro’s first, lower and flatter than usual. Victoria’s right over the top of it.
“No.”
“Yes.”
“Absolutely not.”
“You’re not the boss of me.”
“That is sadly true.”
Lily tilted her head toward the doorway. “Ah. A family classic.”
A second later they came into view. Victoria was halfway up Pietro’s side like an extremely determined koala, and he was trying to maintain some version of dignity while also keeping hold of her before she launched herself.
Sandro followed behind them with the expression of a man who had seen this exact scene too many times to intervene unless blood was imminent.
“Dad said I could show Emily the winter garden later,” Victoria announced.
“I said you could ask,” Sandro corrected.
“Same thing.”
Pietro caught sight of me then, and whatever he was about to say to his sister died before it reached his mouth. His whole face changed, just enough that I saw it. Enough that Lily saw me seeing it.
Victoria noticed too, because apparently nothing escaped anyone in this house. She huffed and dropped back to the floor. “Oh, disgusting. He’s doing the look.”
“What look?” I asked before I could stop myself.
“The one where he forgets the rest of us exist,” she said, with the long-suffering air of someone deeply put upon. “Mom says it’s genetic.”
Sandro came up behind Lily then and rested one hand lightly at her waist, the gesture absentminded.
She leaned into him without even glancing up, as natural as breathing, and suddenly the whole room seemed to make a different kind of sense.
Power was still here, unmistakably. But so was this. This touch. This ease. This center.
Lily’s gaze slid to me, warm and far too perceptive.
“I know you’re wondering whether you can do this,” she said low enough that the others would not hear. “Pietro may not have said it aloud. I don’t think he quite knows yet that he’s asking that question with every breath.”
I swallowed and looked back at the small scene unfolding in front of me. Pietro was trying to pry Victoria away from the bread knife she had acquired, Sandro was pretending not to be amused, and the whole thing felt so absurd that it was hard to reconcile it with the world I knew they belonged to.
Lily followed my gaze. “This man in front of you,” she said quietly, and I knew at once she meant Sandro, not Pietro, “this is who he is the moment he crosses this threshold. He loves us enough to keep the darkness at bay.” Her voice dipped, steadier, older somehow.
“And I love him enough that if one day I had to step into that darkness with him, I would.”
The words settled into me with a weight I felt all the way down.
They didn’t make anything easier.
But for the first time since Pietro had told me the truth, I could see what choosing him might actually look like when it was lived instead of merely feared.
“I had not planned for this,” I admitted quietly. “For him.”
“No,” Lily said with a soft smile. “No one does. I think that may be part of what makes it right.” Then she waved a hand, dismissing her own insight.
“Ignore me. Do what you need to do. But if you ever need someone to talk to, I’m here.
I’ve walked this line, and I would have given a great deal in the beginning for someone who understood what I was trying to hold together. ”
The simple generosity of that landed somewhere I hadn't expected.
“Thank you,” I said.
She squeezed my hand once and straightened just as Victoria appeared in the doorway, pulling Lily away.
Dinner was served a little later in a dining room large enough to intimidate me on sight and warm enough to make that intimidation feel slightly ridiculous.
The table itself was long but not formal, set beautifully without crossing into pagentry.
Candles. Soft lighting. Too much food, all of which smelled incredible.
Somewhere between the second glass of wine Lily insisted I have and Victoria’s running commentary, the whole thing slipped from daunting to surreal to strangely lovely.
Sandro sat at the head of the table, which felt both inevitable and misleading.
Yes, he was the center in one way, but the room still bent just as naturally toward Lily.
Pietro sat beside me, one hand occasionally brushing my knee under the table.
I wondered if he needed the reassurance I was still there, not running away.
Across from us, Olivero looked far too relaxed for a man who, by all logic, should not have belonged to such intimate family dinners and yet clearly had for years.
Victoria, unfortunately, had no respect for atmosphere whatsoever.
“Nicolo is very handsome,” she announced apropos of absolutely nothing while methodically destroying a piece of bread. “I think I will marry him.”
There was one brief, perfect second of silence.
Then both Sandro and Pietro said at exactly the same time, “Over my dead body.”
Victoria rolled her eyes so hard I feared for her vision. “You’re both dramatic.”
“He’s twelve,” Pietro said flatly.
“He’s thirteen in March.”
“That,” Sandro said with deadly calm, “changes nothing.”
Lily took a slow sip of wine. “Perhaps let’s not start an inter-family war over a hypothetical child marriage before dessert.”
“It’s not hypothetical,” Victoria muttered. “He said I was pretty.”
“God help us,” Pietro said under his breath.
I bit down hard on the inside of my cheek to stop myself laughing.
Pietro looked at me, and his expression softened immediately when he saw I was trying not to smile.
“This is amusing to you?” he asked.
“Deeply.”
“Cruel woman.”
“You said I was dangerous.”
“I understated the problem.”