Thriving.
Living, as much as he could as a prisoner.
I wanted him in the exact state he had found my wife.
Then I was going to fucking rip it away from him.
“My grandson belongs here,” Luca’s deep voice floated out in Italian. “He does not belong in that place where he will not thrive, not as he should. He is me when I was his age.”
“Perhaps,” I said, and that one word did fucking things to my heart.
Perhaps.
When the rest of the world seemed to say “maybe,” she always had to be so fancy about it and say “perhaps.” It was small things like this that made her who she was to me, that made the scent of blood seem even closer, almost suffocating until I watched it spill from the fucker who haunted her for years. And what was done to her was done to me, but the offense was infinite times worse.
If my answer shocked my father, which deep down I knew it did, he didn’t show it. He didn’t even turn around and give me his face. After our separation, and our moment of connection over the woman we both loved, we were back to this—this cold shoulder. He would never turn his back on another man, a man he couldn’t trust, but this language of ours was simple to understand, if a man knew how to speak it fluently.
I’d hurt him by leaving, and he was giving me his back as an insult.
“He’s you,” I said, standing. “He’s me. He’s Marzio. And whenever the time is right, I won’t stop him from this, from claiming what’s rightfully his. The blood in his veins. Until then, though, he goes where I go.”
Since I’d given over my place to Rocco, willfully, the Fausti Kingdom would never be mine, unless something happened to Rocco—then the choice would be mine again. If I turned it down then, Dario would get it. But when the time came to appoint a new leader, my son would be up before Massimo, even though his father ruled it.
When that time came? Massimo would either have to challenge Matteo or forfeit it. Even though I was here to guide my son, and I knew his mamma would want something different for his life, I would not stop him from claiming his rightful place if that was where his heart led him.
If there was one thing I learned throughout my years with my wife, it was that so many forces would try to stop me from going wheremyheart was. With her. I refused to fucking do that to my son.
A woman is willing to die for her child during childbirth. She is willing to bleed and suffer for her heart. A man is willing to die for the honor of his heart—whatever it might be.
By the rules of this new world, that was probably seen as archaic, but one thing about this family I belonged to—even though our language was not simple, most of the time, our beliefs were.
Blame it on the fucking romantic.
“Brando.”
He hadn’t dismissed me, but he stopped me right before I walked out of the door, which I was about to. He sensed things in me, things no other man could. His blood called to mine, because he was in my blood, and if the blood of my enemy didn’t spill soon, I felt like the demon who had my wife in its grasp would never let go.
He was inside of her head, and if I didn’t reach inside and kill him soon, the loss of her light would fade me out.
“Tell me something,” my father said in Italian. “Was it a chance to prove your worth outside of ours that stopped you from claiming this—” he motioned toward the window “—or simply the choice you felt I did not give you that made you turn away from me.”
I cleared my throat, and the next words flowed out of my mouth in the same language. “I had no choice. I followed my heart—it is even more powerful than the blood in my veins.” I took a deep breath. “Even though I took the long way, I still came back to you. I’ve always been with you. I am yours. I am a part of you. And I’ll take whatever you’re willing to give me of yourself. As a solider. Or as your son.”
With that, I was dismissed.
27
Brando
“Brando! Brando! Wait!”
I’d been standing in front of the giant, the one behind my father’s estate. I’d told no one to bother me unless it was an emergency—mainly to do with my wife and family back home.
There were times in life that we had to be totally present for the experience we were about to have. This was one of them.
The sound of Carmen calling my name, though, stopped me before I went in search of my son. I was going to give Rocco and the men strict instructions on where he’d be during what was about to go down.
“Mind if I walk with you?”
