After covering her up, I lay on my side, push her hair from her face, and stare at her. “Do I love you more than myself, mi coraźon? Do I love you enough to walk away to—”
“Matteo,” Bekah Steel whispers as she walks into the room and smiles sadly at her daughter. “Did she tell you what’s troubling her?”
I shake my head. “But she’s sleeping, si?”
Bekah sits on the other side of the bed and looks at me. “Zandor is outside and would like to talk with you. I’ll stay with her until you get back.”
“Is everything all right?”
She smiles down at Tris. “Everything will be all right?”
~~~
Outside, I see Zandor standing next to a Jag. He waves me over.
Walking down the stairs, I am thankful I slept before their arrival.
He slides in the driver’s seat, and I open the passenger door. “Is everything all right?”
“I hope it will be. Get in.”
“Where are we going?” I ask as I shut the door.
“Not far. Less than a mile down the road, so I’m gonna make this quick.” He throws the vehicle into drive and hits the accelerator.
“When Tris chose you, you became family.”
Grabbing the dash as he fishtails out of the driveway, I manage to calmly thank him.
“Family is a choice.” He pushes out a laugh. “Trust me; there are times they can drain me and drive me insane, but I lucked out, and my brothers are my best friends, but that is a rarity, and I know that. Hell, we all do.”
He takes a corner going too fast for my liking, and I ask, “Is this some sort of hazing, because in case you forgot, my hearts a bit weak.”
“No, Matteo, it’s strong, and so are you. Tris sees it in you, and so does anyone who has spent more than a couple minutes with you.”
“Appreciated.”
“Another thing you need to know is a secret is rarely kept with this crew, but all of yours are.” He pulls into a gravel parking lot, and the lights shine on two vehicles that are running a few yards away. “I’d like to have better prepared you for this, but there wasn’t time, so know this”—he throws the car in park—“I have your back, and your secrets are safe with me.” He points toward the men getting out of the vehicles. “They don’t know a damn thing from myself or Tris. Hell, I’ve kept him from asking questions. Some advice? You let him talk and, no matter what he says, no matter what you choose to divulge, you’re my family now. You’re my son.”
“Is that—”
“Let’s get this over with so that, when Tris wakes up, we have a plan, okay?”
“I’m confused.”
“Like I said, I don’t know all the details either. Listen to what he has to say. Don’t give him anything in return unless you want to. Everything is up to you, Matteo. You’re not alone.” He opens the door and steps out.
I watch Sabato pace and immediately feel sick to my stomach.
Zandor leans in. “One more thing.”
I nod.
“When she said she loves you, we felt that, too.”
I open the door and step out, gravel crunching beneath my shoes as I walk toward where Zandor stands toe-to-toe with him.
Another man gets out of the other vehicle, and I focus on him.
“Jesus Christ,” Sabato hisses.
“Watch it, Effisto. He doesn’t know anything. Tris was a bit of a mess when we got in.”
Eyes still on the other man, Sabato says, “Look at me and tell me you didn’t know before you met her. Tell me this isn’t some sort of revenge against me.”
“This is how you’re gonna do this? This is how—”
“Is there a fucking manual I didn’t get, Steel! Is there? Because my wife is a fucking therapist, and she’s a fucking wreck.”
I shove my hands in my pocket and inhale the scent of the ocean then look at Zandor. “I’d like to leave now.”
“You got it, kid,” he says, turning around.
“He’s not a fucking kid. He’s twenty-six years old. Twenty-six years!” Sabato’s voice echoes in the air.
Zandor looks back at me, and I shake my head. “I do not have the desire to know this man.”
“Well, tough shit. You matched with Torrence’s online, find-a-family bullshit and sent up flares for the Italian mafia to come look for you.”
“Bullshit. Tris put the test in a bullshit name with my post office address; said he didn’t care to know. He was doing it for her.”
“Of course he was,” Sabato huffs. “Sweet little Tri—”
I poke him in the chest. “You watch your mouth about her, you piece of shit.”
“I deserve that!” he yells. “I fucking deserve that.” He hits his chest. “Come on.”
“All right, I’ve seen enough,” the other man says as he steps forward and holds out his hand. “Matteo, my name is Thor. Sabato is my half-brother. His mother and—”
“With all due respect, sir, I don’t give a damn.”
“But you should. You have—”
“I have everything I need and could want,” I cut him off. “I have a family. I don’t require another. As a matter of fact, and just so there is no reason to revisit this, they do not know I am not blood. I have money of my own and family money. I am ensuring my nieces, my true family, the ones I love, will be taken care of long into their adulthoods, so I ask two things from you. Do not ruin it for them, and do not think I need nor want anything to do with you or yours.”
“I take care of what’s mine.”
“Don’t be daft. I am not yours, nor will I ever be.” I turn to walk away and stop. “Tell your daughter it was someone after your blood money, and tell your son to stay the fuck away from what’s my family and my wife.”
Walking back to the car, I hear Sabato yell, “Luciana Prova, your mother, my first love. Her name was Luciana Prova, and my bastard father caused the accident that I thought killed her. For that, he died. You may not need me, but I need to know how you were put into the hands of a family whose business was failing. I need to know if Luciana is alive, and I want to know who took from me so they, too, can pay for their sins.”
I don’t look back, and as I step forward, he yells, “Luciana deserves to be avenged.”
I turn back. “What makes you think she didn’t sell me off to keep me from ever knowing you? From ever knowing a man who killed his father—”
“To make him pay for what he did to her!” His outstretched hand contains a photo. “She was a good girl, a sweet girl. After my mother’s murder, also caused by the man I called father, Luciana was the first person who dared show me kindness. She loved me, and I her. She deserves vengeance.”
“Again, you assume she—”
“I was shot once, nearly died. She came to me in the light people speak of, and she introduced me to a boy, our son, she called him Eroe.”
We speak for a few minutes. I tell Sabato nothing different. And I ask that he speaks to no one about this. I ask him to stay away from me and to not come to the wedding in two days. And I ask him not to tell his son, because as I told him at the concert—teach him to be a man.