Page 163 of Lorenzo

“It moved quickly after the diagnosis,” he continues. “The treatment was difficult. She spent more time in hospitals than at home toward the end.”

He turns off the burner automatically when the eggs have set.

“It was painful,” Lorenzo says. “For her. For all of us.”

The toast pops behind me, and I turn to pull it free.

“I’m sorry,” I say again, quieter this time.

He divides the eggs between two plates.

“So am I.”

There is no bitterness in the words. Only the weight of something he has carried for more than two decades.

“Alessio probably doesn’t remember her much.”

“No,” he says. “Edoardo remembers pieces. Her voice. The perfume she wore. Alessio knows her through photographs and the stories we tell him.”

He sets the knife down beside the fruit.

“I made sure neither of them grew up believing she had simply disappeared.”

I think of Alessio standing in the warehouse after Rachel’s arrest. Lorenzo’s focus on him from the moment this began.

He lost their mother when they were too young to understand what was happening.

After that, he was the constant.

The protector.

The one who remained.

It explains more than he probably realizes.

“You raised them alone?”

“My family helped. My brothers. Their sons, once they were older. But they were mine to raise.”

He sets a plate in front of me.

“I made mistakes.”

“Every parent does.”

“You sound very certain.”

“I investigate people. Most of them are walking collections of mistakes.”

His mouth moves slightly.

“I tried to make sure they never doubted they were wanted,” he says.

The words hit me somewhere deep and still very much raw.

I look down at the plate before he can see too much in my face.

The eggs are folded with peppers, onions, bacon, and cheese. He pulled out butter for the toast, and even perfectly sliced the fruit.