Total pages in book: 197
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 199143 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 996(@200wpm)___ 797(@250wpm)___ 664(@300wpm)
“The boys’ Headmaster sent Dante—and Lucian but they saved an envelope and paper by just combining it into one—home with a disciplinary mark on his record, a one-week suspension that will end when we go in for a conference, and a letter explaining why. Of course.”
Antony cleared his throat, the grunt as dismissive as his expression when he headed further into the bedroom. Yeah, see she hadn’t expected him to be very concerned. The boys were smart; their grades were great, at least two of out of the three were considering college—Gio was still too young to care—and for the most part, they toed the line in their private school.
It wasn’t often they stepped over it.
“Well, what’d they do?” Antony asked before disappearing into the connected walk-in closet.
Cecelia sighed. “Running some scheme ... banned items or some ... listen, it’s all in the letter if you want to read it.”
Maybe it was the distance in her tone that caught Antony’s attention, but his figure quickly darkened the doorway between the bedroom and closet. She glanced over her shoulder at him but just as fast, put her attention back on the envelope in her hand.
“What’s wrong, Tesoro?”
“Nothing. You know how I am—I get stuck in my head sometimes over silly things when they shouldn’t matter to me anyway.”
“Since when do your boys not matter?”
“Not like that, Antony. I meant ...” Frustration washed through Cecelia, but like she had always been taught to do by the women who came before her, she tampered it down. Antony never demanded or expected her to, of course, but she didn’t like to be irrational or angry. Her husband heard and understood a great deal more from her when she wasn’t. “They’re fourteen and fifteen and already running a scheme at school. How quickly is it going to jump from this to something else?”
Antony made another one of those dark noises. “Well ...”
Cecelia rolled her eyes, refusing to face him. “See, silly.”
“Not silly. And quickly ... if they’re good at what they do, it happens rather quickly.”
Huh.
She always appreciated that her husband offered her blunt honesty with nothing held back. Even if the weight of the truth took away her breath from the force of it slamming into her heart.
Cecelia didn’t bother to turn at the soft approach of her husband’s footsteps. She felt his presence the moment he was at her side, though. Leaning over her back, he pressed a soft, warm kiss to the curve of her shoulder before plucking the envelope from her hand.
“And I will take care of this,” he added. “Don’t even give it another thought.”
“Antony?”
“Hmm?”
She did peer up at him then, forever willing to drown in a happily ever after of their own making with him. Until the end. “It doesn’t bother you a bit, does it? That they’ll be just like you.”
“It can’t.”
“Why not?”
“I spoke my oath—I promised everything for it. Even them.”
Cecelia blinked at that. “And then they’ll do the same thing ... make the same promise.”
“Well—”
“Because this never ends, does it? This life of ours, there’s no way out.”
Antony smirked a bit, and despite the weight in her heart, she couldn’t help but smile back at how content and pleased he seemed when he replied, “But it’s a wonderful life, Cecelia.”
She had to admit ...
He wasn’t wrong.
Full Circle
Antony Marcello stopped counting his birthdays when he turned eighty. He refused to have another birthday party after that age, too. He didn’t see the point, and everyone else enjoyed it far more than he did. He rarely remembered his birthday anymore unless his wife thought to tell him it was that specific day, but that was just fine, too.
Still, despite his age ... and no, he refused to even think his age, now, he’d not forgotten a single thing about his life. From his earliest memory, that one of his father giving him the red pocketknife like the one he gave to all of his sons, too, to the sweet words his wife told him before she fell asleep next to him in bed the night before.
He forgot none of it.
Ever.
Antony considered that a gift, all things considered. When his body began to show his age, and so did his health, his mind stayed the same. People joked that couldn’t possible be true when he told them, but they were wrong.
He knew it all.
Remembered everything.
And he told those stories over and over again. To every and any Marcello that cared to listen—they all listened—and to anyone else they brought home to be a part of their family, too. He told their stories, their history ... that legacy he’d started all those years ago, and he kept talking. Because when he was no longer here, who was going to tell those stories?
Who would remind them?
They needed to carry it on.
Like he had.