My brother—the man who stepped in when I was away—doesn’t blink. “Better. We shaved the chatter down and widened the cushion.”
“If there’s a blip? What will it read as?”
“Give it a little more time, and there won’t be any,” he reassures me.
Vito stops pacing. “So we’re green.”
Giovanni gives him a look. “Not yet. We will be.”
Vito grins like it’s all the same thing. It isn’t.
I bite back the sigh. My impatient son. When will he learn?
I lean back, and the strap at my ankle rubs against my skin.
“The delay actually helped,” Giovanni says, speaking like he rehearsed it. “We let the noise die down. You’ve been boring. Only going where you’re supposed to. It pays. When we start walking again, we’ll be the last place they look.”
“Time and distance will make me look clean,” I say.
He nods. “Exactly.”
Vito rolls his shoulders like he’s itching to do something. “Fine, but when will we be ready bec—”
A look from me shuts him up quickly.
“When we are,” I say quietly. I turn back to Giovanni. “We loop everyone in tonight. Tight circle first. Then outward as needed. No one freelances. We don’t need any spotlights on us.”
I turn back to Vito with brows lifted.
“No freelancing,” he repeats.
“And you keep your mouth shut,” Giovanni adds.
“I said fine,” Vito grumbles, but I know he’ll listen.
Giovanni did more than keep the seat warm while I was gone. He kept the house standing.
When Carlotta died, the rooms went quiet. Antonio and Giovanni filled them. Groceries showed up. Cars got inspected. School forms were signed. Someone always sat in the front row for every stupid recital and short-lived hobby. If something broke, it was fixed by dinner. If a kid needed shoes, they had three pairs before I even heard about it.
They didn’t just runthefamily in my absence; they raisedmyfamily.
When the kids got older, Giovanni pulled my boys under his wing without making me ask. Nico barely needed a hand, always watching carefully, thinking before he made a move. He watched and learned.
Vito… Vito needed more. He needed attention. He needed supervision. He needed a patient hand, and that was Giovanni’s hand. Vito was all heat, a fuse looking for a match. Giovanni gave him time I didn’t have and a temperament I never learned. It kept my son from breaking himself on the same walls I did.
Caterina insisted on being useful in a way that had shocked us all.
She had lifted her chin, looked me in the eyes, and told me she was going to college, daring me to disagree.
How could I say no to my little girl?
First in the family to go. Top of her class, then straight back to us with a degree and a spine of steel. Every ledger tight, every audit clean. I had to watch from a plastic chair and ten locked doors while my little girl turned herself into the most invaluable, indispensable person we had.
Pride was a strange thing in a place like prison, and it still hits me like a punch.
The ache of not having been here for my family never dulls. It just gets quieter when I don’t have too much time to think about it.
Usually, all I have is too much time.
