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I’m snarling out my sentences, and Caterina flinches.
Gia straightens and places herself in between Caterina and I. “Don’t you dare talk to her like that, Elio,” she shoves her finger in my chest.
“I’ll talk to mywifehowever I damn well please.”
“You will do no such thing,” she jabs her index finger into me again. “She’s terrified and afraid, and if you keep pushing her she’s going to regret her choice and tell you nothing.”
“Good,” I hiss. “She should regret…”
“Nothing, Elio. She should regret nothing. And you’ll do damn well to remember that. Now go. Come back when you’re going to be less of an asshole.”
“I’ll treat my wife however…”
“You will not!” Gia shrieks.
Silence, deafening, blankets the room.
“You will treat her with every ounce of respect that she deserves as a human, Elio. I don’t give a fuck if she birthed a hundred children from you and didn’t tell you about one damn kid. I know that our parents did not raise you to toss your wife around because you feel an emotion other than blind rage. Go,” she snaps, flicking her hand at me in dismissal.
“Come back when you’re being less of an ass and more of a man, so we can do what needs to be done. For your child, as well as your wife, you moron.” she snaps.
Somehow in this tirade, Gia has pushed me right back out of the office, and she slams the door in my face.
I blink at the wood.
I need to go rip something apart. I want to cry. To scream. To rage and fight and wage war, all in the name of a feeling and a sensation that I never knew I was capable of.
Truthfully, I don’t know how I should be feeling right now.
I have a child.
And Caterina is her mother.
But most of all, I didn’t know.
For six years, I didn’t know.
I have never put too much thought about being a father. I assumed it was something that would happen with the natural progression of time.
Truthfully, I don’t know anything about children. Few of the men who work for me have children yet, and if they do, they keep their families far from their work.
In theory I always knew that I would have to produce children, but in actuality, I have never pursued this.
Not with anyone except…
The memory of Caterina, Cat, beneath the trees at our engagement party flashes in my mind.
We didn’t use protection. Caterina had been a virgin, and the odds of her getting pregnant on her very first time felt so incredibly low as to be negligible. I shut my eyes and remembered how she had smiled at me.
How she had said if she did have a child with me, she would be happy that they would grow up surrounded by so much family.How my Zia would be their nanny, and how they would be so loved.
Does my daughter know that she has a father?
Does Caterina tell her about me?
I snort.
What would she say? Probably that her father is a tyrant. That he is a king with an iron fist, who rules a bloody kingdom of mercenaries and thieves.
