"Luca, today was?—"
"I've been thinking," he interrupts, setting down his glass. "Maybe you should take Ricci's offer."
The words are like a slap to the face. "What?"
"Or I can arrange for you and the kids to go to Italy. Somewhere no one can find you. No one knows you’re a Monti or a Vitale."
"You want us to leave?" My voice catches.
"I want you safe." His eyes meet mine, tormented. "Someone took our son to get to me, to get to La Corona. As long as you're connected to this life, they'll be targets, and I can’t have that."
I realize in this moment that a part of me believed we might work through our issues. That we might still have a chance to be the family Luca once said he wanted.
But his words rip that hope, that dream, away.
LUCA
I haven’t come to this decision lightly. And its roots are the same as Elena’s insistence that nothing matters when her kids are unsafe. She’ll do whatever it takes.
Well, I’ll do whatever it takes, including getting them as far away from me and this life as possible.
It will gut me, but nothing is more important than their safety.
She’s looking at me like she wants to throttle me. Too bad.
"I can arrange everything," I continue, avoiding Elena's eyes. "Money, security, schooling. You'd want for nothing. The FBI agent's offer isn't terrible?—"
"Stop." Elena's voice cuts through my spiraling thoughts.
I finally look at her. Her face is pale with exhaustion, but there's steel in her voice.
"I spent seven years raising our children alone, Luca. Years of jumping at shadows, afraid of what might happen if anyonediscovered who their father was." She crosses the room until she's directly in front of me. "I won't do it again."
"This isn't about what either of us wants," I snap. "Someone took our son, used him for reasons we don’t even know yet."
She places her hand on my arm, and I fight the urge to pull her close. "Dom tried to protect me all these years, and I'm grateful. But I was always alone. Always looking over my shoulder."
I’m a little surprised at her resistance. This is what she initially wanted. After everything that's happened between us, I expected her to jump at the chance to escape.
"The children need their father," she finishes. I note that she doesn’t say she needs me, but the truth is she doesn’t. She was doing fine without me.
"I couldn't protect Rocco."
Her fingers tighten on my arm. "It happened under my watch too. Look, Luca, I'm not asking for promises you can't keep. I'm asking you not to abandon your children."
I close my eyes, torn between what seems safest and what my heart desires.
“If you don’t go, the children stay with me. I can protect them best here.”
The air in the room changes instantly. Elena's hand drops from my arm as if burned, and she steps back, her face transforming from vulnerability to fury in seconds.
"Are you serious right now? You think you can just take them from me?"
Huh? "That's not what I?—"
"The hell it isn't!" She advances on me, finger jabbing toward my chest. "You've been their father for less than a month, and now you think you get to make unilateral decisions about their lives?"
I feel my own temper rising to match hers. "They're my children too, Elena."
