Page 94 of One Breath After Another

Zeke stared his way.

Luca watched back.

His father was one of those unhappy men—the disappointment was no longer loudly voiced, simply felt and understood between the two of them.

“Did you find anything this week?” Naz asked.

About Penny, he meant.

Luca didn’t need clarification.

Everything was about Penny lately.

“Nothing. What if she doesn’t want to be found? None of this makes any sense, Naz.”

“Something happened. And I want answers. Roz barely sleeps. I wake up, and she’s crying about her. I promised her ... I have to at least try.”

“You mean me.”

Naz gave him a look.

Luca only shrugged. “Yeah, I know.”

Naz would if he could, but as he’d been told over and over the past few months ... famiglia first. The mafia always got its way.

No matter what.

“I’ll find her, Naz. It’s just ... when.”

And how.

CODA.

Present Day ...

“CROSS! Get back to the house, son! Time to eat!”

Penny’s head snapped to the side, gaze darting over her shoulder through the trees to find the form of a man coming to stand on the rear porch of the three-level home. Like his son, she hadn’t laid eyes on Nazio in as many years.

Not much had changed.

He was older, yes, but his playful grin as he called for his child still felt like a welcomed sight to her.

“Cross!” he called again.

The little boy just a few feet away looked her way with a shrug. “You’re gonna leave now, huh?”

“I have to.”

He nodded once. “Yeah, you keep doing that to people, I guess. Leaving.”

Penny blinked away the veil of tears that shrouded her vision. “I don’t want to, though.”

“Cross Nazio Donati—time to eat, kiddo!”

As if on cue, Cross’s stomach growled. He didn’t even look sheepish about it.

“The interlude—the part of the song that repeats, right?” he asked her.