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I squeeze her hand tighter. Despite everything we’ve been through, I can’t stand to see this pain on her face. It comes from a place of pure love. Her need for revenge and her willingness to do whatever it takes to get it is dark and ugly, but this part of her is so far removed from any of that. I want nothing more than to wrap her in my arms and tell her it will be okay, but I’m acutely aware that any such display of affection would likely earn me a knee in the nuts. “That’s what he told me. That he buried your mom here.”
She turns back to the house and to the woman now walking down the steps toward us. “Hi. I’m Sabine. Dante called and told me you’d be coming.”
Keres blinks at her. “But wh-who are you?”
Sabine smiles. “My wife and I are old friends of the Moretti family.”
Keres tips her chin at the other woman, displaying no outward sign of the anxiety that I know she’s feeling. “Lorenzo told these guys my mom is buried on your land.”
Sabine nods. “Yeah. Beneath a beautiful red maple tree down at the back of the field. Would you like to come see her?”
Keres takes a step forward, her hand still gripping mine. I take that as my signal she wants us with her and ignore the tiny embers of hope that ignite in my hardened heart.
The four of us walk up the path and around the back of the house. “Why did they bury her here though?” Keres asks.
“Nicole and I had just moved here. Dante and Lorenzo bought us this land—”
Keres shakes her head. “They bought you this land? Why?”
Sabine sighs. “Nicole was in a really bad situation. Her father and brothers…” She glances at Romeo and me, as though asking for permission to keep talking. I shrug, not having a clue what the hell is going on. “They were key players in the human trafficking business, and Dante, Lorenzo, and Max… well, they dealt with them. During the course of putting an end to the whole mess, they found your mom’s body. I know they’re…” She taps her lips with her fingers. “Let’s not sugarcoat it. They’re Mafia, right? But they’re also good men. They couldn’t leave a mess behind, and they didn’t want to leave her body alone in an unmarked grave where nobody could find her if they wanted to. So they brought her here and asked if they could bury her in the field, a place where she could rest peacefully. I wonder if they knew you’d come looking for her one day.”
“And you agreed to have some woman you didn’t know buried in your yard?” Keres asks.
Sabine laughs softly. “It’s more like a field, but also, yes. That could have been my Nicole left for dead somewhere like that. It could have been any of us. I’d like to think someone would offer me the same courtesy.”
Sabine stops walking and points out the maple tree up ahead. “You’ll find what you’re looking for right up there. You can stop in for some iced tea when you’re done, or just go on your way if that’s what you’d prefer.”
Keres nods, but her eyes are fixed on the tree a hundred yards in the distance. Sabine slips away, leaving Romeo and me standing on either side of Keres, who only now removes her hand from mine. She starts to walk toward the spot Sabine just pointed out, and after a few strides she breaks into a jog. Romeo and I stay rooted to the spot, unsure if we’re supposed to share this moment with her. She drops to her knees under the tree and falls forward, like someone just took her out with a bullet to the head.
Romeo scrunches his nose. “You think we should go be with her?”
I look between her and him. The truth is I have no fucking clue what she wants from us right now, but I do know what I want for her. I jerk my head and walk toward her. Our feet crunch against the dry grass, signaling our approach, but she doesn’t turn her head. She’s kneeling upright now, her focus centered on the small gray headstone engraved with the words Here lies a true warrior.
I sink to my knees beside her, but she still doesn’t acknowledge my presence or Romeo’s when he does the same on her other side. Silent and unmoving, she stares at the grave. One fat, solitary tear runs down her cheek. I watch it roll down her jawline and drip onto her jacket.
“She was here all this time,” she finally says, her voice calmer and more composed than I expected. She sniffs once and sits cross-legged on the ground. Her eyes are now dry, like that one tear was all she could afford to shed. “I thought she was all alone, left in that horrible house or tossed in some ditch somewhere, with no one to…” She wipes her nose with the back of her hand. “But she was here, with that nice lady and her wife.”
“Yeah,” Romeo says.
“She was the best, you know? No matter how bad things got, she always made the most of it. She told me stories of the old Greek gods and the spirits, and how the Keres would take the souls of dying warriors and carry them to their victorious afterlife.”
Romeo slips an arm around her shoulder and she leans into him.
“She sounds like the best kind of mom,” I say, wishing I could remember my own, but she died before I took my first breath. She was in a car wreck, and they pulled me from her womb as she lay dying. I was alone in this world from the moment I entered it.
“She really was. She died trying to protect me, you know?”
I lace my fingers through hers. “All good moms would die to protect their kids, Kee.”
“Yeah, but fortunately most of them don’t have to. She died in so much pain. Her final screams will haunt my memory forever. But what hurts me the most is that she died thinking that I would never be free. She died believing she failed me.”
Romeo and I stay quiet, aware there’s nothing we can say to ease her suffering. All we can do is be here.
“I made it out, Mom,” she whispers. “And all the men who hurt you are dead. I know you said my father’s name would save me. You thought me being a Moretti would protect me.”
Did she just say she’s a fucking Moretti? Romeo mouths what the fuck. I stare back at him, equally confused.
“And it did, Mom. Not the way you meant though. Being Salvatore’s daughter didn’t offer me any protection, but Lorenzo Moretti—my brother—he rescued me and set me free.”
