“You are not a part of the Guild,” Rocco growls.
“But my son will be its heir.”
The fire in his eyes resides just enough for me to see it—the longing, the hope, the joy he has restrained by pure willpower.
He wants this. He wants my son.
But I can’t live in a reality where that’s even a possibility.
“I must say, it felt as if I was having Déjà vu when you came here, Miss Bellini. You do resemble Giuseppina. It could have been seventeen years ago if I hadn’t been so gray.”
I find myself smiling a little at that.
Everyone always said that I look like my mom, although I never personally saw it. I’ve always idolized her for her beauty and her kindness. Up until these last few weeks, I didn’t think she was even capable of doing anything wrong.
I address Rocco directly, “I came to Giuliano to ask for permission to leave the Guild on behalf of my son. The way my mother once did for me.”
The silence that follows is almost unbearable.
Rocco seems to have retreated into himself entirely.
Giuliano, however, is more than comfortable filling the silence. “I was just telling Miss Bellini about that day. She doesn’t remember, but Giuseppina brought her along to that meeting. You were eight years old, but your mother carried you the whole time. You were fast asleep.”
Rocco slowly turns to look at his father.
“She’d packed already,” Giuliano continues. “She was dragging a suitcase behind her too. Deceptively strong, that woman. She would have fallen straight to her knees to beg for asylum if I hadn’t stopped her.”
“But Giuseppina had already made her oath to the Guild. I told her there was no way I could let her leave, but that wasn’t why she was there. She was there to beg on behalf of her daughter. After the Vitale massacre, she couldn’t bear to see young Miss Bellini grow up in this environment.”
Giuliano squeezes my shoulder again. “Of course, being a father myself, I completely understood her suffering.”
“You were no father to me,” Rocco growls.
“Silence.”
The word is chillingly sharp, and I find myself shying away from Giuliano’s touch.
“I offered her a deal out of the goodness of my own heart,” Giuliano offers me an apologetic smile. “I allowed her to choose between her husband and her child.”
This news had almost crushed me when I first heard it.
My mother had always brushed off any questions about my father, always claiming that he abandoned us.
But the picture of us she kept…the fact she never took another lover. —had she loved him? Had she cried for him as she took me away?
Either way, she hadn’t hesitated in her choice. Something that, until two days ago, I might have struggled to understand.
But now? Knowing my child is now growing inside of me, I know there is nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to protect them. And if offered the same choice, I wouldn’t hesitate either.
“What did he offer you?” Rocco says quietly.
I say nothing.
“What did he fucking offer you?”
“Do not speak to her like that!” Giuliano roars.
Rocco stands, towering over him. “You have no authority anymore, old man. You have nothing to offer us.”
