16. Giovanni
— ? —
Giovanni
My son is teaching me about the moons of Jupiter, and I am failing spectacularly.
“The big moons of Jupiter are called the Galilean moons, Papa.” Gio holds up four fingers proudly. “Because Galileo found them with his telescope a long, long time ago.”
“Galileo,” I repeat, scribbling in my notebook. The pages are filled now, two weeks of cramped handwriting, facts about space I never thought I’d need to know. “And how many Galilean moons are there?”
“Four.” He ticks them off on his fingers. “Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto. Io has volcanoes that shoot lava really high. Europa might have an ocean under the ice. Ganymede is the biggest moon in the whole solar system, even bigger than Mercury.”
“And Callisto?”
Gio’s face scrunches. “Callisto is… I forget what Callisto does. But it’s still important.”
“Everything in the solar system is important,” I say, and his face lights up like I’ve just handed him the universe.
This is what I’ve been doing for two weeks: learning to be a father through astronomy lessons and bedtime stories and the particular kind of humility that comes from being corrected by a four-year-old who knows more about space than I ever will.
It’s terrifying and wonderful and so far outside anything I’ve ever experienced that I find myself genuinely uncertain how to proceed - a feeling I’m not accustomed to.
I’ve run an empire since I was twenty-three. I’ve made decisions that shaped the lives of hundreds of people. I’ve faced down men who wanted me dead and walked away without a scratch.
But nothing in my life has prepared me for the particular vulnerability of loving a child.
“Papa?” Gio tugs at my sleeve. “Can we go outside and look at the real Jupiter tonight?”
“It’s cloudy tonight, piccolo. Maybe tomorrow.”
“You always say maybe tomorrow.”
“Because it keeps being cloudy.”
He sighs with the theatrical disappointment of a child who doesn’t understand why the weather won’t cooperate with his schedule. “Okay. But when it’s not cloudy, you promise?”
“I promise.”
The word feels different now than it used to. Heavier. More binding. When I make promises to Gio, I mean them in a way I’m not sure I’ve meant anything before - not even my wedding vows, though the shame of that admission burns in my chest.
* * *
Cielo finds us in the garden an hour later, Gio having commandeered both Beppe and Rino for an elaborate game involving asteroids and space exploration.
The two men are currently pretending to be asteroids, which apparently requires them to stand very still while Gio “navigates” around them in his imaginary spaceship.
“You’re spoiling him,” she says, watching from the doorway.
“Yes.” I don’t pretend otherwise. “Is that a problem?”
“It will be when he goes back to regular life and expects everyone to play asteroid at his command.”
“Regular life.” The words taste bitter. “Is that the plan? You’re going to take him back to wherever you’ve been hiding and pretend the last two weeks never happened?”
She’s quiet for a moment, her arms crossed over her chest. The chain around her neck glints in the sunlight - I’ve noticed it before, noticed how she touches it sometimes when she thinks no one’s watching, but I haven’t asked what’s on it.
“I haven’t decided anything,” she says finally. “But Giovanni… you can’t buy his love with telescopes and star maps. That’s not how it works.”
“I’m not trying to buy his love.” My voice comes out rougher than I intended. “I’m trying to make up for four years and five months of absence. Four years I didn’t know he existed. Four years of birthdays and first words and all the things fathers are supposed to be there for.”
“That wasn’t-”
“I know it wasn’t your fault.” The lie tastes wrong, so I correct myself. “I know you thought you were protecting him. But Cielo, he’s my son. My blood. And you thought - you actually believed - that I would let my world touch him. That I would put him in danger.”
“Your world touched me.” Her voice is quiet but firm. “Your world almost killed me, Giovanni. While I was pregnant with your child.”
The words land like a physical blow, and I don’t have a response for them because she’s right.
She’s absolutely right. Whatever justifications I’ve built, whatever anger I’ve been nursing about the lost years, none of it erases the fundamental truth: I wasn’t there when she needed me.
I let someone get close enough to hurt her. I failed.
“I know,” I say finally. “And I’m sorry. I’ve been sorry for five years.”
“Being sorry doesn’t change anything.”
“Then what does? What can I do to fix this?”
She doesn’t answer. She just watches our son pretending to fly through asteroid fields, and the silence between us is heavy with everything we haven’t said.
* * *
The investigation into the airport attack is slow, painstaking work.
Whoever orchestrated it was careful - professional in a way that suggests resources and planning, not random violence.
The men we took down at the airport were hired hands, local muscle with no direct connection to anyone significant.
But hired hands get paid, and money leaves trails.
I’m reviewing the latest reports when Salvo, one of my newer men, comes to deliver papers. He’s young, eager, prone to talking too much - all qualities I would normally find irritating but have learned to tolerate because he’s good at his job.
What I find less tolerable is the way he looks at Cielo when she passes through the room.
“Signora.” He nods to her, his eyes lingering a beat too long on the curve of her neck, the fall of her hair. “You’re looking well this afternoon.”
“Thank you, Salvo.” Her voice is polite but cool, the voice of a woman who’s learned to deflect unwanted attention without causing a scene.
He doesn’t take the hint. “I was wondering if you might need anything. Coffee? Something to eat? I could-”
I don’t say a word. I simply stand, move to the corner of the room, and drop into push-ups.
The room goes silent.
Beppe, who’s been reviewing security logs at the far table, doesn’t even look up. “Salvo. Why don’t you go check the perimeter?”
“But I just-”
“Now.”
Salvo leaves quickly, the door closing behind him with a soft click. I continue my push-ups, counting silently, letting the physical exertion burn away the rage that’s been building in my chest since the moment he looked at her like she was available.
“Giovanni.” Cielo’s voice is somewhere between amused and exasperated. “Was that really necessary?”
“Yes.”
“He was just being polite.”
“He was looking at you like he had the right to.” I switch to one-armed push-ups, because apparently my jealousy requires additional outlets. “He doesn’t have the right. No one has the right.”
“Except you?”
“Especially not me.” I pause, breathing hard. “But at least I know it.”
She makes a sound that might be a laugh or might be a sigh, and when I look up, she’s shaking her head with an expression I can’t quite read.
“You’re ridiculous.”
“Probably.”
“And possessive.”
“Definitely.”
“And doing push-ups in the middle of a meeting room because a twenty-three-year-old looked at me for two seconds too long.”
“If you’re trying to make me feel foolish, it’s working.” I push myself back to my feet, wiping my hands on my trousers. “But I’m not going to apologize for wanting to protect what’s mine.”
“I’m not yours, Giovanni. We’ve discussed this.”
The words hurt more than they should. I want to argue, to remind her that we’re still legally married, that the ring on my finger means something even if she’s decided it doesn’t. But fighting with her about possession isn’t going to win her back - I know that much, at least.
“You’re right,” I say instead. “You’re not. But while you’re under my roof, under my protection, men in my employ will treat you with respect. That’s not negotiable.”
She studies me for a long moment, something shifting in her expression.
“Fine,” she says finally. “But next time, maybe just use your words like a normal person?”
“I’ll consider it.”
She leaves, and I turn back to my reports, trying to focus on the work instead of the way her presence lingers in the room like perfume.
* * *
The breakthrough comes late that night.
I’m in my study, cross-referencing payment records and known Falcone associates, when a name catches my eye. Not a name, exactly - an initial. A monogram.
The torn scrap of paper I found in Sicily, the one I’ve carried for five years without understanding its significance, is sitting in a drawer of my desk. I pull it out now, smoothing the worn edges, studying the partial monogram I’ve never been able to identify.
The new report mentions something similar. A shipping manifest, signed in person, bearing the distinctive seal of someone high in the Falcone organization. Someone who uses their own paper for private transactions.
“The lady’s own paper,” one of the contacts called it.
I stare at the partial monogram on the scrap in my hand, and I think about the dinner linens in Sicily, the embroidered napkins at Corrado’s table. The same elaborate initial, worked in expensive thread.
Ludovica.
The connection isn’t proof - not yet. But it’s a thread, and threads can be pulled.
My phone buzzes with an incoming message. Unknown number, encrypted.
The lady is asking questions about Milan. About who lives in your house now. She’s getting closer.
The thread twitches in my hand.
Someone is still out there. And they are not finished.