"Until?" Pietro prompts.
"Until Riccardo died." Luna's composure finally cracks. "The payments stopped immediately. Bruno was in a coma, and without that money..." She takes a shaky breath. "I had a choice. Risk exposure by getting a job, knowing someone might recognize me, or watch my son go hungry. A mother who knows there are people who'd use her child as leverage? I chose to live off charity rather than make him a target."
The room falls silent. Everyone processing this story, these revelations.
"The boy," I finally ask. "Is he mine or Riccardo's?"
Luna meets my eyes. "I don't know."
"I know whose kid it is," Bruno says from his wheelchair, his voice flat and cold.
I turn to Bruno. Everyone does.
Luna's eyes snap open wide. "What?"
"The boy is Riccardo's."
"Oh my God." Luna closes her eyes, her whole body sagging in the chair.
Vittoria puts both hands over her mouth, a strangled sound escaping her. Nora grabs her arm, steadying her.
"How do you know?" I ask Bruno.
"I paid doctors in Prague." He doesn't even look guilty. "Had them send me a sample. I ran a DNA test against Riccardo's and your hair I took."
The room explodes.
"You've known for years?" Pietro's on his feet.
"You sick bastard," Nico spits.
But I stay focused on Bruno. "Riccardo didn't know Luna was alive either?"
"No." Bruno's jaw tightens. "He mourned her like everyone else. Drank himself stupid for months, thinking she died because of him. Because he couldn't stay away from his brother's woman."
"Jesus Christ," Pietro breathes.
"Why?" I ask Bruno. The word comes out strangled. "Why keep it from him? From all of us?"
Bruno's eyes flash with something dark. "What the fuck would anyone else do if they were in my position?"
"Not this?—"
"Really?" Bruno cuts me off, his voice rising. "You want to talk about keeping secrets, Lorenzo? You hid Giuseppe's other family for years of looking us in the eye and lying."
"That's different?—"
"Is it?" Bruno leans forward in his wheelchair. "You made a choice to protect the family from a truth that would destroy us. I made the same choice."
"You let Riccardo die thinking he got her killed," Vittoria says, her voice breaking. "He carried that guilt?—"
"He carried the guilt of fucking his brother's woman," Bruno snaps. "That was his to carry."
Luna's breathing hard now, processing everything. "Riccardo has a son. Had a son. A son he never knew about."
"A son who's better off not knowing his father betrayed his uncle and died in a hail of bullets at a wedding," Bruno says coldly.
"That's not your choice to make," I tell him.
