Page 108 of Worth of Waste

“Then why do you sound like someone kicked your dog?”

“Do I?”

“Yes,” Karen said, laughing softly.

“I just …” Dino trailed off, looking back in the direction his son had gone. “I guess I just realized today that I’m almost at the end and I haven’t really considered what I’m going to do when I get there.”

Karen sat up a little straighter on the couch, and she avoided his gaze. “You mean the trial?”

“No.”

“I thought—”

“I’m not going back to prison, Karen.”

That stance of his hadn’t changed, and it wasn’t going to.

Not now.

Not ever.

His lawyer did his thing. His trial was scheduled to happen pretty soon, which was why he demanded Lily’s wedding happen so quickly as well. But he wasn’t going to make it that far—he wasn’t making a home in a prison block.

“I don’t … understand,” Karen said lamely.

“Morocco, Nepal, Russia, Vatican. Pick one.”

Karen blinked. “Pardon?”

“Pick one, Karen. Any one of those countries—there are more, actually, but those are a few that come to mind.”

“Aren’t those countries that don’t have extradition treaties with the United States?”

Dino nodded once. “Pick one and I’ll get us there before you can even blink.”

“But—”

“That’s the only plan I have. Otherwise, it’s trial, prison, and visitation for the next twenty or so years. Do you understand?”

“Of course. I just hadn’t thought about …”

“Leaving,” Dino finished for her.

“Exactly.”

“But would you?” he asked quietly. “Would you leave with me when I go?”

For a long while, Karen simply stared at Dino, saying nothing. The longer she stayed silent, the more his anxiety grew. Chicago had become like a home for her, and her parents still lived across the country, waiting on her yearly visits that she’d tried to make every year since Junior was born.

He didn’t want to take her away.

He didn’t want to force her.

But …

“I don’t want to leave you behind,” Dino said, shrugging. “We’ve got years doing this together—trying to figure this out. You would do fine without me, I know you would, but it kills me to think about it. I wonder if you want more children someday with me; do you think you could be happy with me every day and not just a couple of days a week? I’m still trying to figure out who I am without all of this shit hanging over my shoulder. What kind of man am I, who could I have been? I want to have the chance to find out who he is.”

Karen’s eyes glazed with tears before the wetness dampened her lashes, and then fell, making slow tracks down her cheeks. Dino didn’t reach out to wipe the moisture from her cheeks like he usually would, but only because she was due her emotions. He never wanted to take them from her.