“Doing what?”
“Trying to be strong for everyone until you break.”
“I’m not?—”
“Sweetheart,” she says gently, “I raised you. You think I don’t know you? Whenever things get hard, you pull away. You hide. You take the weight onto your own shoulders because you’re scared someone will leave if you show them the truth.”
My throat feels tight. “Not every man sticks around, Mom.”
“No,” she agrees. “Your father didn’t. But not every man is your father.”
I swallow. Hard.
“You can ask for help,” she says. “You don’t have to, but you can. And this man? He sounds like someone who’d want to help.”
I don’t tell her she’s right. That Riccardo’s already done more than any man ever has.
I do let myself imagine it, though—just for a second. A world where he really does want me. A world where I’m not a burden.
Where I’mhis.
“Mom,” I whisper, voice small. “Maybe he really?—”
And then I hear it.
I stop. Everything in my body goes stiff.
I listen again for the sound on the other end of the phone.
A wheeze.
“Mom?” I sit up straight. “Mom, are you okay?”
Another wheeze, a choke. Like air refusing to be sucked in.
Then nothing.
“Mom!”
The line clicks. Silence.
My blood runs cold.
“Mom—?”
No answer.
My heart slams against my ribs, and I feel myself go cold all over as the call disconnects on its own.
Something’s wrong.
Something’s very, very wrong.
14
RICCARDO
Matteo lives on the opposite side of the river, in a place that looks more like a fortress than a home. I’m reminded of that every time I get there. It’s basically a tower, but without the medieval moat around it, and smack in the middle of New York. A modern castle made of glass and steel.
