Chapter 2
Mina
Rain drums against the bus windows, and the city glitters beyond the glass.
Streetlights are haloed in gold, brake lights bleed red across wet asphalt, and neon signs from the mini-marts are smeared into streaks of pink and green.
The bus is packed and steaming with damp bodies and the smell of wet wool.
A woman near the back is arguing with someone on her phone.
A baby fusses. The driver swears at a taxi.
I flex my fingers in my lap, trying to work out the throbbing.
Eight clients today, and eight hours of kneading muscles, digging my thumbs into knotted shoulders, and working tension out of bodies while my own arms ached for mercy.
The last booking was a businessman who carried his stress like armor and tipped me five dollars like he was doing me a favor. My hands will ache for hours.
But the bus is slowing, and through the rain-smeared glass I can see Rosa’s street, and none of it matters anymore. Because in thirty seconds, I’m going to see my son.
I’m off the bus before anyone else, ducking through the rain to Rosa’s front door. I get my key in the door and open it as a small figure hurtles into view.
“Mama!”
Leon wraps his arms around my knees. I scoop him up, ignoring the protest in my shoulders, and bury my face in his hair. He smells like crayons and grape juice, and every good thing in my life.
“Hey, baby.” I hold him tight, my aching arms be damned. “Were you good for Auntie Rosa?”
“I drawed you a picture!”
“You did?” I pull back just enough to see his face, his bright eyes, and the smear of what looks like grape juice on his chin. My heart clenches the way it always does. Four years, and I still can’t believe he’s mine.
“It’s a dinosaur eating a truck.”
“Yes, I see that. It’s wonderful.” I smooth a dark lock of hair back from his forehead.
“The dinosaur wins.”
“Obviously.” I kiss the tip of his nose, and he giggles. “Dinosaurs always win.”
I squeeze him closer, and he lets me, his small arms wrapped around my neck. He’s four years old and still lets his mother hold him like this, but I know it won’t last forever. Someday he’ll be too big and grown-up for cuddles in the doorway.
But not today.
Rosa appears behind him, flour in her hair and Carly on her hip. My niece is two and her face is covered in what looks like pasta sauce.
“How was he?” I ask, craving all the details about my son’s day without me.
“He was an angel,” Rosa says, wiping Carly’s face with a damp cloth. “Played with Mason all afternoon. They built a fortress out of couch cushions.”
“A really big fortress,” Leon adds. “With a moat.”
“Did the moat have water?”
“It had lava.”
I laugh and press a kiss to his cheek. “Much better than water.”
Rosa’s boy Mason hovers behind her, three and a half years old and shy, peeking out at me with his father’s serious eyes. I wave at him, and he smiles and waves back. He’s much shyer than my bold, friendly Leon.
“You want to come in for coffee?” Rosa asks.
“I should get this one home.” I shift Leon on my hip. “It’s getting late.”
Rosa hesitates, and there’s something in her eyes. She glances at the children, then back at me. My insides do a little flip as I wonder what she has to tell me.
“Leon, baby, why don’t you play with Mason?” I set him down gently. “I need to talk to Auntie Rosa for a minute.”
He scampers off without argument, already chattering to his cousin. Mason trails after him, drawn along by my son’s big personality. Carly squirms to be put down and toddles after the boys on unsteady legs.
The moment they’re out of earshot, Rosa’s smile fades.
“So.” She keeps her voice low. “Mom called today. It’s happened. He asked about you.”
My stomach tightens. I don’t have to ask who he is.
Affecting nonchalance, I shrug. “Good for him. It was bound to happen eventually.”
“Mina.”
“What?” I cross my arms, and then uncross them when I realize how defensive it looks. “It’s been five years, Rosa. I doubt he even remembers I exist. He was probably just making polite small talk.”
Rosa gives me a look. The look. The one that says she knows me too well and exactly how hollow those words sound.
“You know as well as I do that a man who’s capable of what he did doesn’t forget anything. What if he shows up at your place?”
I meet her eyes. “Then I’m prepared.”
A heavy silence settles between us. Rosa’s gaze flickers to where the children are playing, and then back to me. She’s as worried as I am.
“Just…” She reaches out and squeezes my arm. “Be careful, okay? He’s not a boy anymore. He’s Don Cristiano. If he wanted to, he could—”
I seize her arm, alarm flaring through me. “I’m always careful. Do you think I don’t know what’s at stake? What I’ll lose if he ever finds out?” My voice rises, and to cover my panic, I shove my hand through my hair.
“I know you do,” she says softly. “Call me if you need anything. Day or night. I mean it.”
“Thank you.”
Though what Rosa thinks she could do to defend me and Leon against the Montoni don, I have no idea. No one can save us. Not bodyguards, not cops, not anyone.
Which is why Cristiano can never know the truth.
I slip Leon’s dinosaur drawing into his backpack, and help him into his raincoat. Rosa hugs us both at the door, holding on a little too long.
“Say bye to Auntie Rosa,” I prompt my son.
“Bye, Auntie Rosa!” Leon waves cheerfully, oblivious to the tension crackling in the air. “Bye, Mason! Bye, Carly!”
The door closes behind us as I settle Leon on my hip and take a breath.
Maybe Cristiano was just making small talk with Mom.
Maybe he really has forgotten about me, and we’re safe.
I have to hope.
The bus back to our neighborhood is just as crowded and warm. Leon sits on my lap and presses his nose to the fogged window, drawing wobbly shapes with his finger while he narrates a story about a dinosaur who lives on a bus.
The rain has gotten heavier by the time we reach our stop. I peer through the window at the downpour and sigh.
“Ready to run, baby?”
Leon’s face lights up. “Ready!”
I pull his hood up over his dark curls and hoist him onto my hip. The doors open and we plunge into the rain.
Leon shrieks with laughter as I sprint toward our building, splashing through puddles, rain plastering my hair to my face. He’s giggling so hard, and despite my aching arms, the long day, and the fear that lives in the pit of my stomach, I’m laughing too.
“Faster, Mama!”
“I’m going as fast as I can!”
“Faster!”
I’m fumbling for my keys with one hand while Leon wipes rain from his eyes.
And stop.
There’s a tall figure standing at my door.
Large feet in shiny black shoes that are beaded with moisture.
A long expensive coat that probably costs more than six months of my rent.
Tall. Broad-shouldered. Leather gloves. He’s holding a wide black umbrella that conceals his face, and for a moment, I can only see the outline of him, dark and still against the blur of rain.
Then the umbrella tilts back.
Amber eyes meet mine, and the world stops.
Cristiano Montoni.
He looks different. Older. The softness is gone from his face, replaced by sharp angles and a jaw that could cut glass, which is accentuated by the black turtleneck tight around his muscular throat. He’s bigger than I remember, broader, filling the sidewalk like he owns it.
He looks a lot like his father.
The thought sends ice through my veins.
Slowly, he extends his arm and covers me with the black umbrella.
The rain that was pattering on my head and running down my cheeks suddenly ceases.
I stare at Cristiano, transfixed, as raindrops dare to splash among his golden curls.
He still wears them carelessly, endearingly long, and even with fear thudding in my chest, I remember exactly what it feels like to stroke those curls, Cristiano’s head a warm weight in my lap, his eyes closed in bliss.
“Mina.” His voice is low and careful. Like he’s approaching a wild animal that might bolt. “I was hoping we could talk.”
My arms tighten around Leon instinctively, one hand coming up to cup the back of his head. I press his face into my shoulder. His eyes. Oh God, his eyes.
“Mama?” Leon squirms against me. “Who’s that man?”
“No one, baby.” My voice comes out strangled. “Just—just a moment, and we’ll go inside.”
He obeys, burrowing into me, and I hold him so tight my exhausted arms scream.
Cristiano’s gaze drops to the child in my arms. Something shifts in his expression that I can’t read.
“This is him?” he asks quietly. “Your son?”
I don’t answer. I can’t.
“Can I come in?” He gestures at the front door as the rain falls around us in sheets. “Just for a moment. I won’t stay long.”
Every instinct screams no. No, you cannot come in. You cannot be near my son. My son.
But then I take in Cristiano’s expensive coat and his tailored clothes, and I want to laugh at myself.
Every man I’ve dated in the past few years turns tail and runs when he sees the reality of my life.
The cramped apartment. The toy boxes and the children’s books.
The evidence of a child who needs me more than any man could.
They take one look at my world and suddenly remember somewhere else they need to be.
Cristiano Montoni, the don of a crime empire, was raised in a mansion with marble floors and staff to clean up after him. He’s only ever seen me in his world. The grand kitchen, the sprawling gardens, the wealth that surrounded me that was all his and never mine. He has no idea how I actually live.
Let him see. Let him be horrified. Maybe he’ll finally realize that I don’t fit in his world and never have.
“Sure.” I shift Leon higher on my hip and unlock the door with trembling fingers while Cristiano shelters me from the rain. “But just for a minute.”
My apartment is a fourth-floor walk-up, and it’s small. I’ve made peace with it being small, but watching impossibly tall Cristiano Montoni fold himself through my doorway makes it feel tiny. A dollhouse invaded by someone too large to fit.