“Bye, Mommy.” Elisa kisses my cheek. “Don’t worry about Romeo. He always stops crying after you leave.” Elisa is eight going on eighty sometimes, and I worry that I haven’t done enough to shelter my daughter. She shouldn’t be reassuring me. That’s my role. One I feel I’m failing at these past six weeks since Alfredo was killed during the mass shoot-out at the New York hotel where Ben and Saskia’s fake engagement party took place.
I hug my daughter close. “Your brother is a sensitive soul, but he’ll be fine. I get sad thinking of him crying, but I’ll be okay too. You don’t need to worry.” Though it kills me to leave Romeo at the school gate each morning, watching tears roll down his handsome little face, I know he will adjust in time. It helps that Rowan goes to this school too, and while it’s a new experience for all the kids, Romeo has had the hardest time settling in.
He misses Chicago and our old home. Misses his school and the friends he made there. And he cries for his grandma, because Mom didn’t relocate to Greenwich with Sierra and me, and she’s busy now that she’s taken back control of Lawson Pharma, the pharmaceutical company that’s been in her family for generations.
It’s so hard to explain it all to a four-year-old. All he knows is his papa is dead and we now live with Auntie Sierra, her new husband Ben, and Rowan. Rowan is Ben and Sierra’s five-year-old son, and he’s Romeo’s best friend as well as his cousin. Having him here has been a godsend. Especially in the early days when Romeo cried himself to sleep every night, missing his papa.
“Love you, Mom.” Elisa hugs me one final time before slipping out of our embrace.
“Love you too.”
“Bye, Auntie Sierra.” She waves at my sister before turning her head and smiling at the two men standing guard behind us. “Bye, Alesso. Bye, Frank.”
Frank nods. Alesso waves, his face briefly betraying emotion before he dons his usualmafiosomask. Discovering he is a made man, and one of Ben’ssoldati, was a massive shock. I’m equally surprised he made out with me at the ball. I thought, at the time, he wasn’t aware of who Alfredo was and he didn’t understand the risks. But he did. And he still kissed me. I’m not sure what to make of it.
“Have a good day, sweetie.” Sierra waggles her fingers at my daughter, and I’m wearing a proud smile as I watch Elisa thrust her shoulders back, lift her head, and walk confidently through the gate and up the steps leading to the private school in downtown Greenwich.
“You are raising one confident little girl there,” Sierra says, looping her arm through mine.
“I am in awe of her inner strength,” I admit. “I’ve been a basket case these past six weeks, and she has taken it in stride. It concerns me. I think she’s hiding her feelings because she doesn’t want to burden me.”
I know from personal experience that bottling all your feelings up inside can have disastrous long-term consequences. I haven’t even begun to deal with mine. I don’t want my daughter suffering in silence because she thinks she’s protecting me. It’s my job to protect her, and I need to do better.
“Do you want me to talk to her?” Sierra asks as we begin walking. “If she is trying to protect you, she might open up to me.”
Frank retreats to his car, where he will wait outside the school until the kids are done for the day. Technically, he is Rowan’s bodyguard, but he watches my children too, and I’m grateful.
After everything that went down in Chicago, I am nervous. I’m scared of retaliation and wondering what it means for our future now my husband is dead. Although Ben is president of The Commission—the governing body that aims to unite all Italian Americanmafiosoin the US—and he is ultimately in charge of what happens to The Outfit in Chicago, I still don’t know what it means for me. Especially with the Sicilian family connection.
“There is no harm in trying. Thanks.”
“I love my niece and nephew, and I feel an additional responsibility toward them now we are all living under one roof,” Sierra says as we walk toward the parking lot with Alesso in tow.
“One very big roof,” I joke, but it’s the truth. Ben bought a large plot of land in Connecticut years before he reconnected with Sierra, or knew about Rowan, and he built a massive house on the grounds. The property boasts a few luxurious guesthouses as well as a house where the security team lives. Ben built a large playground in preparation for Rowan living there one day. There are walking and biking trails in and out of the large, wooded area at the back of the grounds, a basketball court, and a tennis court. Inside, there is an Olympic-sized swimming pool, a modern gym with all manner of weights and machines, a home theater resplendent with a popcorn machine and soda counter, and a ginormous kids’ playroom.
We live in our own private rooms in the west wing while Sierra and her family live in the east wing. The second floor of the property houses the staff accommodation, but it’s largely unoccupied because this house is just that big.
“Let’s grab a coffee,” Sierra suggests as we approach her SUV.
“I thought Ben didn’t want us socializing in the town.”
“He’d prefer if we didn’t. Keeping a low profile is key, and he doesn’t want anyone to know where the house is, for security reasons. But we can’t isolate ourselves completely from the community. The kids go to school here now, and I’ll be opening my new holistic center in a few months. We can’t hide completely. At least this way, we appear less mysterious, and that should garner less interest than if we isolate fully.”
The biggest smile graces her mouth as she utters the words. After they got married, Ben surprised her with a building in the town. He purchased it so she could open her own practice. Sierra is a qualified acupuncturist, and she plans on furthering her studies in due course. For now, she is busy pulling a team together to remodel the premises so it suits her needs. Then, she’ll begin recruiting other alternative therapists to work with her because she wants to provide a whole range of services to the local community.
I’m happy for my sister, but it only serves to highlight how much I lack purpose in my life.
“Serena?”
I blink, snapping out of my head. “Sorry. What did you say?” Out of the corner of my eye, I notice Alesso frowning as he stares at me. As Sierra’s bodyguard, he goes with her everywhere, and there is no avoiding him, even if I wanted to. I catch him watching me a lot, and I wonder if he thinks back to the night of the gala ball as much as I do. I know it’s not healthy, but I can’t stop reliving the feel of his hot mouth against mine and remembering how incredible his hands felt touching my body.
“Coffee?” Sierra repeats.
I nod as I open the passenger door of her luxury, armored SUV. “Sure. Sounds good.”
* * *
“Have you given any more thought to NYU?” my sister asks when we are settled at a small table in the back of the cozy coffee shop, nursing cappuccinos.
