Chapter 11
Mina
Istand in front of Leon, contact lens case in one hand while he’s sitting on the bathroom vanity, his small face tilted up toward mine.
“Eyes wide, baby. Don’t blink.”
He tries. He really does. But he’s four, and the contacts makes him flinch every time, tears leaking down his cheeks even though he’s being so brave.
“I don’t like them,” he whimpers.
Guilt slices through my heart. It gets harder and harder to do this every day, but what choice do I have? I have to put them in his eyes every time we leave the apartment now. I know what Cristiano is like. I can’t risk “accidentally” bumping into him somewhere when I’m with my son.
“I know, sweetheart. I know. I’m nearly done. There.” I force a smile as the brown lens settles over that telltale amber.
Leon blinks rapidly, adjusting to the contacts, and looks up at me with eyes that are finally, safely brown.
“Mama?”
“Yes, baby?”
“How come I don’t have a daddy?”
The question catches me off guard, and I feel my lips part. For a moment, I can’t speak.
Taking a deep breath, I smooth his hair back from his forehead.
Dark hair like mine, not his father. “Remember what I told you? All families look different from other families, and that’s what makes each one special.
We have Grandma and Auntie Rosa and your cousins. They’re our family. Aren’t we lucky?”
“But all my friends have daddies. My cousins have a daddy.”
“I know.” I pull him into a hug so he can’t see my face. “Your daddy and I knew each other when we were young, but sometimes grown-ups can’t be together even when they care about each other. It doesn’t mean he wouldn’t love you if he knew you.”
“He doesn’t know me?”
My throat feels thick with strong, painful emotions. Guilt that my son doesn’t know his father.
“It’s complicated, baby,” I say, my voice husky with tears. “Grown-up stuff.”
I smile and cup Leon’s face in my hands, trying to pretend that this isn’t the hardest conversation I’ve ever had with my son.
For a moment, an image rises unbidden in my mind.
Cristiano in an armchair, wearing something soft and touchable.
Leon curled against his broad chest, a picture book open between them.
Two heads bent together, one golden, one dark.
Two pairs of amber eyes following the words and gazing at the pictures.
Cristiano’s deep voice, low and warm, the corner of his mouth tilted up in a smile, reciting the words in the beautiful way he used to quote lines of Shakespeare to me. Leon giggling. Safe. Happy. Loved.
Two handsome Montoni men, comfortable and cozy.
I crush the image before it can take root in my heart.
It wouldn’t be like that. Montoni men are monsters.
Agnello Montoni beat his wife and his son, and Cristiano inherited his crime empire.
He probably hurts people. Might even have killed people.
Cristiano would raise Leon to be just like him and teach him that violence is power and power is everything.
The thought of Cristiano emotionally and physically crushing the goodness and light out of my son and turning my sweet boy into a killer is the most terrifying thing I’ve ever imagined.
My son is better off as a Santoro.
“But I have always wanted you,” I say, and my voice only trembles a little. “I wanted you so much from the very first second I knew you were on your way, my beautiful boy.”
It’s a little white lie, but not so far from the truth. Seven weeks after I’d lost my virginity to Cristiano and left the Montoni mansion for good, I realized I’d missed two periods. I sobbed on the bathroom floor clutching the pregnancy test, unable to believe what I was seeing.
I’d never felt more alone in my life, and then I’d never felt more afraid.
I knew from Mom that Cristiano was long gone, thousands of miles away in Italy.
I thought for a while about contacting Cristiano to tell him I was pregnant, but Mom and Rosa closed ranks around me, reminding me that I was afraid of Cristiano.
That I couldn’t trust him. The Montonis wouldn’t be interested in a bastard child and wouldn’t give me any financial help.
Mom and Rosa would help me raise my child, if it was my decision to keep it.
It was a scary decision, the hardest I ever made in my life, but I wanted my baby. And when I first held my son in my arms, I understood what love is for the first time in my life.
Unconditional.
Selfless.
Not the cruel possession that Cristiano offers.
“You’ve always been loved. By me. By Auntie Rosa. And by Grandma.”
Leon considers this with the solemnity of a four-year-old. “Okay, Mama.”
And just like that, he’s done with the conversation, wriggling out of my arms and down from the counter to grab his backpack.
But I stay standing in front of the mirror for a moment longer, trying to pull myself together.
Reminding myself that I can do this, no matter how hard it is. I will do this.
For Leon.
I emerge from the bathroom, and call out, “Time to go to Auntie Rosa’s.”
“Yay!” Leon comes barreling out of his room, backpack bouncing against his shoulders, stuffed dinosaur clutched in one hand. “Is Mason gonna be there?”
I ruffle his hair as we head for the door. “Of course he is. He lives there, silly.”
I grab my purse and keys, doing a mental checklist. Phone. Wallet. Bus pass. Eye drops in case Leon’s contacts bother him.
The rain has softened to a drizzle, but I pull Leon’s hood up anyway, holding tight to his hand as we walk to the bus stop. He chatters the whole way, about the puddles, about a dog he sees across the street, about whether Mason will let him play with his new fire truck.
I make the right noises at the right moments, but my mind is elsewhere. Watching for a tall man half concealed by an umbrella, his golden hair gleaming in the shadows.
The bus arrives with a hiss of brakes, and I lift Leon up the steps.
Twenty minutes later, Leon’s contacts are out and he’s playing with his cousin, and I’m sitting in the kitchen with my mom and Rosa.
Rain streaks down Rosa’s kitchen window, but inside, everything is warm. The light above the kitchen table glows yellow. Mom has set out a tin of homemade cookies. The kids are playing in the other room.
I wrap my hands around my mug of tea and let the heat seep into my fingers.
Across from me, Rosa is gesturing with a cookie, discussing Carly’s birthday party, which is going to be princess themed.
Next to me, Mom is offering ideas for the cake that she’ll bake and decorate.
Heart-shaped with lacy piping, or a tiered sponge with glittery flowers.
I should be joining in on the conversation and enjoying this moment of cozy family peace, but I can’t focus on their words. They wash over me like the rain against the window, a background noise to the thoughts I can’t stop.
Cristiano in my apartment. Him standing in my living room, too tall, too broad, taking up all the space and all the air. The way his amber eyes missed nothing. My furniture, my photos, my son.
The way he looked at me.
He’s different now. All sharp edges and controlled stillness.
His jaw is more defined, his shoulders broader, his presence heavier with a kind of authority that wasn’t there before.
Five years in Italy turned the bleeding, pleading nineteen-year-old who pressed his bloody palms against the car window into something else entirely.
Something more dangerous.
I know it, even though he hasn’t done anything.
Yet.
But his eyes are the same. That’s what I can’t stop thinking about. His eyes burning into mine with the same intensity they always had. Like I’m the only thing in the room worth seeing.
I take a sip of tea, staring at nothing, lost in a jumble of memories and emotions.
If he decides he still wants me, his methods will be the same too. Patient. Manipulative. Methodical.
“Mina?”
I blink. Mom and Rosa are both looking at me, their conversation paused.
“Sorry, what?”
“I asked if you wanted another cookie.” Rosa pushes the tin toward me. “You’ve been staring at the same spot on the table for five minutes.”
“Oh, sorry. I’m just tired.” I reach for another cookie, even though I don’t want it.
Mom’s brows pinch together in concern. She knows me too well.
All my tells, all my deflections. She’s been watching me like a hawk ever since the day she bundled me out of the Montoni mansion and we fled to Rosa’s in her car.
It’s guilt, I think. She had no idea there was something serious going on between me and Cristiano, and she didn’t know what he was capable of.
How could she? I never confided in her what he was really like, and Cristiano is so good at hiding his true nature.
“You’re not worrying about Mr. Montoni, are you?”
The name is so jarring. Mr. Montoni. But that’s what he is now, my mother’s employer, the new master of the house she’s worked in for nearly twenty years.
To others, he’s Don Cristiano, with all the power and violence that title implies.
A world away from the person I hoped he was, a sweet boy who gave me a snow globe and so tenderly and devastatingly seduced me.
I open my mouth to tell them about Cristiano showing up at my apartment a few days ago, but I hesitate. The clock on the wall tells me that there isn’t time to talk about this now. I have to head for work in a few minutes.
Besides, I already know what they’re going to say. They’ll be open-mouthed with horror and urge me to stay away from Cristiano. I already know I have to stay away from him. I don’t want to be anywhere near him. I have Leon to protect.
“No,” I assure them. “No, of course not. I was thinking about work.”
Mom and Rosa exchange a glance. The kind of glance that says they’re not sure if they believe me, but they’re not going to push.
“We could get a restraining order against him,” Rosa suggests.
I sigh and rub the heel of my hand over my eyes. I would love a restraining order against Cristiano. “Based on what? Him living in the same city as me?”