The cerebral palsy did not disappear. It never would. But I learned very early that difficulty was not the same thing as defeat.
By the time this plane landed, I would step back into the role waiting for me as if I had never left campus at all. Pietro Benetti. Alessandro’s heir. Soon-to-be sotto capo.
And yet, for reasons I found increasingly irritating, part of me was still in a university library, watching a woman in a pink headband push her glasses back up her nose and look at me as if I were simply a man in her way.
When we landed, a car was already waiting on the tarmac.
The moment I saw my mother step out, followed by the small whirlwind that was Victoria, the tension in my shoulders eased for the first time since leaving Boston.
“Pietro!”
Victoria bolted up the steps before I had even set a foot outside the jet and wrapped both arms around my leg with enough force to throw herself slightly off balance. I caught the top of her head with one hand before she could topple backward and laughed.
“Munchkin,” I said, “you couldn’t even let me get down the stairs first?”
“I missed you.”
I narrowed my eyes at her in mock suspicion. “Is that because Father refuses to play with you?”
She tipped her face up, all innocence ruined by the cheeky little grin that was far too much like our mother’s.
“Maybe.”
I ruffled her hair, and the softness of it triggered a thought so unhelpful I nearly cursed out loud.
Would Emily’s feel the same?
Focus.
I made my way down the stairs more slowly than most men would have, one hand firm on the rail, my cane steady against the metal steps. Some days my body cooperated more generously than others. Today it gave me enough, and I had long since learned not to waste energy resenting what would never change.
My mother waited at the bottom.
“You didn’t have to come, Ma,” I said, leaning down to kiss her forehead.
“I know,” she said, smiling as she touched my cheek. “But I missed you, and your sister was absolutely determined to come. You know how stubborn she is.”
I exhaled. “Like Father.”
“And you,” she said, with that look mothers perfected somewhere between affection and accusation.
“I’ve only been gone five weeks.”
“Five weeks too long.”
There was no arguing with that. Not successfully.
Olivero was already loading my bag into the car by the time we slid into the back seat, Victoria immediately plastered against my side.
“We have to go straight to Lou’s wake,” my mother said as the driver pulled away.
I turned my head toward her. “Do you think I could head back tonight?”
The way her expression fell made guilt hit.
“I mean,” she said lightly, though I knew her too well to miss the disappointment, “if you need to?—”
“No.” I cut the word off with a small shake of my head. “I’ll go back tomorrow. I’ll stay tonight, Ma.”
