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ANTONIO
“Hello, my love.” I stare down at the gravestone I’ve spent more time with than the woman it belongs to. I watched her be lowered into the ground more than eighteen years ago. I vowed to her on that day that I would discover who took her from this world, from our children, from me. “It shouldn’t have taken me as long as it did to figure out it was the person closest to me. I’m sorry I failed you, Ari. My biggest regret is the two of us not running the day you told me you were pregnant with Domenico.”
My ego wanted to fight my father, crumble everything he and his father before him had built. I wanted my father to watch me rebuild with an opposite version of his vision. I wanted to piss him off and he not be able to do a damn thing about it.
But it didn’t happen that way. Sure, I angered him. I ripped his canvas to shreds, but the foundation I thought I’d blow to pieces didn’t so much as budge. I was oblivious to my father plotting and succeeding in killing my wife. When Sienna grew into the woman I always knew she would become, he planned her death too. Thank the fucking stars he didn’t succeed.
Sienna thinks she and her mother are polar opposites, and yes, they are different in many ways. Their spirits, on the other hand, are twin stars. Rafe recognized that. I know that now. It’s why he had to get rid of her. My daughter cannot be tamed any more than my wife could.
“Sienna is getting married in a few hours.” I squat down, level with the marble tombstone, placing a bouquet of flowers in front of it. “It should have been you planning her wedding, sweetheart, not me. You would have done a far better, more elaborate job than I did. I considered asking Marti for help but thought better of it. Giovanni is always with me now and no one is ready for that shitstorm.”
“The flowers I brought you are the same ones used for Si’s bouquet. She doesn’t have a favorite flower, so I went with yours—white calla lilies and roses. I chose red roses since that’s our daughter’s favorite color. There’s green foliage that wraps around them, secured with white lace. Yours is a mini version of hers.”
“I know you disagreed with me wanting to join the De Salvos with our family by way of marriage, just as much as you hated my arrangement with Mischa Nikolayev. We pulled both off by the way, but I suppose you know that already if you’re looking down, watching us. Ren knows, Si does not. It went over with our son as I’d expected since he loves Sasha the way he should. Sienna, however, is not going to handle that knowledge the same as her twin. She’s too much like you.”
“You wanted a sweet girl. Someone that acted like a lady. She can be sweet, but a lady she is not. At least not the type you had in mind when she was born. That’s something I can’t apologize for. She’s strong, and she’s tough. That’s what saved her life from the same fate you were met with.” I suck in a breath and exhale forcefully. “There is so much I would change if only I could go back in time, my love. I miss you more than I can articulate.”
I push off my knees, coming to a stand. “I’m tired, Ari. The yearning to be with you again is becoming so heavy that sometimes I think I’m going to pass out from the weight of it. You are still the first thought that enters my mind when I wake and the last one when I close my eyes. I’m ready to come home, but I still have one task left to accomplish first. Until then, baby.”
Turning, I leave her, that weight mounting again with every step away from her I take.
* * *
I havethree hours until my daughter walks down the aisle to the only man I’ve deemed worthy of her hand. For a while, that was questionable. Getting another woman pregnant was never part of the plan. I blame that on his parents not teaching him how to recognize ungenuine people. If he had been part of our world from the beginning, grew up among my children the way he should have, that would never have happened. I would have seen to it myself that Matteo was made into a man.
In the end, becoming a single father when he was still a kid himself did make him a man, a good man, and an even better father. Proof that life works in strange ways.
I never questioned if Sasha was the right woman for my youngest son. Like Matteo, she too suffered because her parents are dumbasses. Mischa wanted to keep her at a distance from our world. Being honest with my children is still a decision I’d make over again. If there is one thing I am proud of in life, it’s my relationship with each one. There’s no strain or divide that lives between us like the one that festered for years between Mischa and Sasha.
She may never fully trust her parents after learning the truth: her parents never divorced, only made it seem like they did, even to their children for safety. I better than anyone understand the reason behind his action, but he should have been up front with Krishna and Sasha.
Krishna . . .
I was thrown a curveball with him and Domenico, blindsided, in fact. I know more details about their relationship than I should, more than I want to know. With what I’m about to lay on the table, I had to know if what they have between them is real, if it’s something lasting.
I’ll give them both this: they’re good at making the outside think they don’t like each other. That’s good. It’s a strength I’m happy they both possess. They’re going to need that to survive what’s coming.
It makes no difference to me if my son dates women or men—or in Dom’s case, both. As long as he finds what Ari and I had, that’s all I want. It’s all I want for all of my children. One day in the distant future, I hope Brooklyn finds that as well.
I steel my spine and take a breath before blowing it out through my mouth, then I knock on the solid wood door. I’ve waited years for this. A war is coming. It was always coming, but I had to bide my time until I had an ace in my pocket.
The door opens, revealing a young blonde standing in front of me, her eyes vacant. My blood heats before she speaks. “Can I help you, sir?”
She’s dressed how I’d expect: an actual maid’s uniform. It’s not a sexy Halloween costume, but it is a tight-fitting black dress wrapped around a body of bones with a modest amount of cleavage on display. There’s a black leather strap that runs from the middle of her chest, sewed into the dress, that goes up and around her neck with a collar.
“Tell Cormac Fitzgerald that Antonio Caputo is here to see him.” Her eyes widen at the mention of my name. It doesn’t surprise me. Fitzgerald is known for his loose lips. My name is surely a curse word in his house.
Without saying a word, she backs away from the door, leaving me to listen to her hurried steps. The wait isn’t as long as I would have made him wait. In less than a minute, his overweight body takes up most of the open space before me.
I don’t bother waiting for him to address me. He looks stumped for words, so I get to the very reason I’m gracing his doorstep.
“You have something that belongs to me. And I’m here to collect her.”
