“When I got out, I had plans.”
The words stick in my throat. I can’t say them out loud. Not to her.
“After that, I planned on living quietly. Passing my legacy on.”
Now I laugh for real.
“I know it would shock you to hear me say that. Me? Living quietly? But you don’t know what it’s like behind bars, Carlotta. You don’t know silence and loneliness until you’ve been there. I spent years minding my own and keeping my thoughts to myself.”
I take in the view in front of me—stones popping up with names and dates, a fig tree with no fruit, the river winding off in the distance.
“I need guidance. Not just about Elena.” I suck in a breath. “About Lucia.”
The name feels foreign on my tongue. It’s the first time I’ve said it out loud in I don’t know how long.
It releases the breath in my lungs like I’ve been holding onto it for years.
“I haven’t said it in so long,” I admit, ashamed. “Like, if I avoid saying her name, I could make her something different, not my little girl.”
The last time I saw her was in the courtroom that day. Lucia sat on the stand and spoke about me to a jury. Her voice was strong and clear. To everyone else.
But I knew her better than that.
I knew what was going on inside her. It was all in her eyes. She only looked at me once as they took her back into the marshal’s custody, and I never saw her again.
It wasn’t a long look. Not defiance. Not even hate.
It was a look of sorrow.
The look of a little girl who wanted to go back home but knew she never could.
And it broke me.
“You cried,” I say out loud. “In the car after, and I wasn’t there to see it. Antonio told me, but he didn’t have to. I could hear it in your voice before they took me away.
“And again, when you came to see me the first time. You begged me to let her go.” I clear my throat. “I did. I always intended to, but I didn’t tell you. I don’t know why I couldn’t just give you that. The reassurance that I wouldn’t go after her. My pride was too big. Maybe it still is.”
I scoff. No maybe about it.
“I wasted so much of the time we had left letting you think I had a plan. The endless arguments that could’ve been spent on something else. Maybe she would’ve come h—” My voice breaks on the word, but I have to push through.
“She could’ve been there for you, even when I wasn’t. She could’ve been there for Vito and Nico, Caterina. But she wasn’t. And it’s because of me.”
I shove back from the gravestone and pace away, restless and disgusted.
“I pushed her away. I pushed her to those prosecutors. That boyfriend of hers. When he died, I should’ve been there for her. I should’ve comforted her.” My voice carries, loud and angry, across the empty field. “I should’ve assured her it wasn’t me. I had nothing to do with it!
“But I couldn’t do that, could I? I used it to prove a point. To pull her back in line. I let my daughter think that the boy was dead because of me. That’s where this started. She never looked at me the same way again.”
The anger in me dies down to a whisper. “I pushed her away. Maybe you would’ve gotten better with our oldest daughter here by your side, Carlotta. And you could’ve lived to see your children grow up and have babies of their own.”
I spin away.
“Why don’t you hate me!” I shout. “Why didn’t you blame me? Why did you stand by me? I didn’t deserve it!”
I walk to the fig tree and lean against it, letting out my breath slowly before walking back to stand in front of the white gravestone.
“She’s in Las Vegas,” I say. “I found out that she was in Las Vegas, and she was carrying a child. Your grandchild. She made a new family there.”
