“Neither did I. Until I saw what this family does to women.” He looks at his own hands, then back at me. “We don’t only love. We obsess. We find one woman, and the world stops existing outside of her. Valerio is losing his mind because he’s trying to fight the pull. He thinks if he stays away long enough, the fever will break. It won’t.”
I want to scream at him. I want to tell him that his “curse” is just a lack of emotional regulation and a surplus of ego. But I haven’t reached that level of courage yet.
“He’ll come back,” Lucian says, standing up. “And when he does, he’ll be on his knees. He’s an idiot, but he’s a Morelli. He’s just fighting twenty-nine years of thinking he was untouchable.”
He heads for the door. “Don't make it harder for him than it already is, Doc. Forgive him for being a coward. He’s currently drowning, and you’re the only shore he has.”
He leaves. I’m alone in the office, the silence ringing in my ears.
Come back on your knees, Valerio,I think.Just come back.
After I put myself back together, I call in my next appointment. The drug lord’s session ends in a blur of gray grief. He cried for forty minutes about a daughter who’s never coming back. Sometimes I think there’s no medicine for grief. I know I’m a therapist and am not supposed to be so grim. But to me, grief is one of those things that just stays there forever. You learn to live with it.
The drug lord leaves after what feels like eternity. Being away from Valerio is doing a weird thing to my timeline; hours feel like seconds, but the days feel like decades.
I can’t stop thinking about Isabella—his mother. She’s part of the reason why he’s currently painting New York red.
I find myself driving to the same cafe. It’s a masochistic impulse. I sit at a small metal table, nursing a tea that tastes like paper, watching the crowds. I’m looking forher.
Five minutes later, she slides into the chair across from mine.
“I’ve been coming here every day,” Isabella gasps, frantic. She looks like she hasn’t slept since the last time I saw her. “Just in case I found you alone. Withouthim.”
“That man is your son,” I push back, my voice hard.
Isabella’s face contorts. She starts to hyperventilate. She closes her eyes, forcing her breath into a rhythmic pattern. This is a woman who has survived a thousand panic attacks. She knows how to self-regulate.
“I haven’t been good with my—” she almost gags on the word, “—theboys. I admit that. But I’m not lying when I tell you they’re dangerous. Stay away from Valerio.”
“Valerio would never hurt me,” I counter.
Isabella lets out a hysterical sound. She reaches out and shoves her sleeves back to her elbows. I stop breathing.
Scars dictate the entirety of her arms.
“This is what their father did,” she whispers. “Every night, he used a different type of shackle to make sure I didn’t run. They only got tighter. They cut until they hit bone.”
I feel tears prickling my eyes, but I don’t look away. This whole situation is just miserable for everyone involved. “Valerio never used cuffs on me. He’s never hit me. He’s never taken a single thing from me without my consent.”
“But you don’t see the way he looks at you,” she snaps. “There’s insanity in his eyes. What makes you think he won’t wake up one day and decide the only way to keep you is to chain you to the floor?”
“I’m sorry for what you went through,” I say, rubbing my neck. “But you put them through hell, Isabella.”
“They’re not my sons. They’rehis. All his. I tried… I tried not to hurt them. I never hit them. I only slapped Valerio once, and I regret it to this day.”
She slapped my Valerio because he tried to touch her fucking hand. He was just a child. A poor, defenseless little human.
A sob racks her thin frame. “Sometimes, I just needed a break. I’d lock them in the cellar for an hour or two. Just to breathe without them looking at me. Valerio, more than the rest… he just looks too much like his father. I couldn’t stand the sight of him.”
“That’s still abuse, Isabella,” I bite my lip to stop myself from screaming at her. She hurtmyValerio… but she was hurting too. “You broke him before he even had a chance.”
“I know!” she wails. “I messed them up. It’s why I can’t see them. I’m ashamed. I’m so goddamn ashamed of what I did to them.”
I reach across the table. I don’t take her hand, but I thumb the massive diamond ring on her finger—a rock that probably cost more than a suburban house.
“You moved on,” I sigh, looking at the stone. “You found a way to live. Why can't you let them move on, too?”
“Moving on cost me everything,” Isabella whispers. “I don’t want that for you. It’s too late for the others.”
