Total pages in book: 101
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 93425 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 467(@200wpm)___ 374(@250wpm)___ 311(@300wpm)
The idea makes my stomach sink. He was keeping his daughter away from the family. Keeping her away from me.
“I didn’t want any business dealings coming for her in retaliation.” The lie spills easily off Eric’s tongue. It’s a plausible explanation, but one we all know isn’t true. The Don wouldn’t call us all here for that reason.
“Enzo,” my father calls on me, snapping me out of the trance I’ve fallen into while watching Chris. Chris must have felt my gaze burning into his face, but he won’t look at me. “What did you always say you were going to name your oldest son?”
It's a sharp change in conversation that is almost jarring, but I know better than to do anything but answer. “Matteo,” I reply, not taking my eyes off the lawyer who has broken out into a sweat.
“At least she kept your wishes in mind for something,” my father mutters under his breath. “Chris. How long were you intending on keeping the heir of the Lombardi Famiglia away from his family?”
Chapter Ten- Enzo
The room is silent. I’m not sure anyone is breathing. I’m not.
Eyes dart my way, everyone is watching for my reaction. I remain frozen in place as my father’s words wash over me. Seconds tick by without Eric answering the Don. In my shocked state, I’m waiting to hear the cracking of bones or the coughing up of blood. The Don doesn't take nicely to traitors.
“I have a son?” I whisper. In the silence, I might as well scream it. It's like the world comes crashing down on me, emotions jumble inside me so quickly that I can't distinguish them from one another.
I have always wanted a family and kids. My father may be a ruthless crime boss, but he’s also a family man. And my mother is the greatest mother on the planet. I don’t know how she handled us. Andy would come over and we would wreck the house and torment my sisters. My sisters were little hell-raisers in their own right.
Andy’s hand lands on my back. He gives my shoulder a reassuring squeeze and I lean into it, allowing him to ground me. I close my mouth, my jaw snapping back into place, and refocus my eyes on the center of the room. My father is staring at me, waiting for me to come back to the moment. He doesn’t want me to miss whatever Eric is going to tell us.
I nod my head at him, alerting him I am fully present in the moment. My emotions are something I can deal with later. I have enough experience to know how to lock them away when they’re inconvenient.
There’s a flash in my father’s eyes, and I realize it isn’t the Don in the room with us right now. It’s my father. The man who values family more than anything. The grandfather who has had his grandchild taken away from him, and that might be scarier than the Don.
“How old is the boy?” he asks Eric, his voice harsh.
“He just turned four in February,” Eric admits.
Chris doesn’t bother trying to deny that the child, my child, exists. Trying to claim that my father received bad intel would be a stupid move on his part. My father does nothing without a hundred percent certainty.
Four years old. I remember when Caterina, my youngest sister, was four. It was when she finally became nice. She had been a rough baby. Even I had to take shifts rocking her in the night so my parents could get some sleep. She was worse as a toddler. She was three years old before she slept through the night, and she still had a habit of crawling into my bed with me when she wanted to cuddle.
It pains me I don’t know these things about my son.
“Why were we never made aware of his existence?” my father continues his line of questioning. I can hear the words but barely process them.
“I found out she was pregnant when she got accused of stealing a pregnancy test. She didn’t have any way to contact Enzo or she would have. I didn’t know he was the father until she asked me a while later for his number so she could tell him.”
I grind my teeth together. That had been one of my father’s commands, to not give her my phone number. My one night with her was to be all I had until she got home from university. If I got into the habit of talking to her, texting her, or calling her on the phone, my patience would have thinned as my obsession grew. She wouldn’t have lasted her first semester.
She was young, five years younger than me. My father saw the look in my eye and knew every damn intention I had. I wanted her by my side. Giving her time to grow up was what my father had intended, not this.