My eyes swung up. The EMT started frantically fooling with his machinery, and like watching the peak of a mountain break through tough ground, the lines started to go up, up, up. Her pulse was picking up. Even the cut on her head started to bleed.
She moaned, and a second later, when we hit a pothole, she cried out in pain. Then, without opening her eyes, she squeezed my hand, and like that, I lived to tell about a thousand deaths—and the one life I still had left to live. With her.
32
Capo
5 Months Later
My son was only a few hours old, but he ruled our worlds already.
He was what Tito called a miracle baby. He had survived despite the circumstances. He took after his mamma. She said he took after me, too.
He had thick black hair, brown eyes that seemed light enough to maybe turn amber someday, and almond-colored skin. His shoulders were wide, and his arms and legs long. He was a big boy.
Mariposa said he had the features of my face and my build, but he didn’t have her nose or my eyes, the two things we had both wished for him to have. But between the importance of getting certain features or having the strength to survive this cruel world, I was thankful he took the latter over the first.
A wise man once told me that we often get not what we want, but what we need.
I had once wished to be king. I had once wished to rule it all. Not wished, but demanded.
I got both of those things, but in ways that I never knew I needed. I was the king of my wife’s heart and the ruler of this world we had created together. If it were in my power, my son would have all that he ever needed.
Carrying him over to the window, opening it up, letting the Milano sun shine on his face, I allowed the world to take their first glimpse of this newly born prince.
My son.
Saverio Lupo Macchiavello.
He was the new prince, but the prince of our world. He wouldn’t have to prove his ruthlessness to rule. He just did. Regardless of his footsteps, the paths he would take, the choices he’d make, he would always have a kingdom to return to. A safe place to escape to when the devil was on his heels.
“He’s just as beautiful as his papà.”
I turned to find my wife staring at us. She had been sleeping, but for eleven hours of labor, she looked…brand new. Someone I had never met before. She was soft on the outside, pliable enough to deliver a son into the world, but her soul was a warrior queen. She was a woman who had found unbreakable faith, a strength not known to the strongest man on earth. Her flesh and bone could bend, could break, but her soul was unbendable, unbreakable.
It took this woman to show me how much of a man I was. Sweat still coated my skin and clothes from the intensity of it all.
“He’s going to be as big as his Papà, too.” She winced. “He seriously hurt my oonie.”
I laughed and my son blinked at me, yawning after. “Save the memory for later, when he’s older, when you don’t want him to do something.” I shrugged. “Guilt trip.”
She smiled a tired smile, but the sun lit up her entire face. She looked so healthy. Alive. She patted the bed and then opened her arms. “Closer. I want you both closer.”
The nurses kept coming in, wanting to take him, but we both refused to let them. After what had happened to my wife, I wanted my family as close to me as possible. Thechanceof letting him go for a few hours wasn’t worth it.
Mariposa took Saverio from me, bringing him close to her chest, inhaling his hair like air. He had so much of it that we could comb it. I grinned as I ran my hands through it, making it stand up.
“Capo,” she whispered.
It took me a moment to look at her. It was hard not to keep staring at him. I wondered if I’d ever be able to stop.
“Mariposa.” I leaned in and kissed her forehead. She closed her eyes, but her face wasn’t entirely at peace. She had something on her mind. “Use all of the words.”
She nodded. Opened her eyes. Fiddled with his blanket. “I was going to forgive him, you know? Bruno. Right before I went under. I felt that I should. But I couldn’t. Right before I took my last breath…I couldn’t. I could forgive him for killing me, but not him.” She pressed Saverio closer to her chest, resting her lips on his head. “I couldn’t forgive him for killing my baby.”
Her words were firm, but to my ears, eerie, as if her mother had spoken through her. Maria had forgiven me, but she wouldn’t have if I had hurt her daughter. It hadn’t been my intention to hurt Mariposa—I was determined to save her. Therefore, Maria forgave me for taking her life without a tremble in her voice.
I stroked the side of Mariposa’s face with my thumb. “You were meant for this. For him. You’d kill for him. Die for him.”
