I glance at the hedges blurring by, the sky trying to remember blue. Okay isn’t the word. Different is. “I’m… good,” I finally reply, and the truth in it almost knocks me sideways.
“Leo says you’re headed to the notary. Paperwork for the new Gemini project, right? I’d rather have your signature on my forehead than on those filings, but I’ll take what I can get.”
“Thanks for the confidence,” I deadpan.
“I’m serious, Matty.” His voice lowers. “I know you said you needed air, but the family needs to see your face.Ineed to see your face.”
Guilt tightens my grip on the phone. I tap the console and raise the privacy screen, the sound-dampening glass sliding up with a hush.
Releasing a breath, I whisper, “I should have told you sooner. I wasn’t keeping it from you to be an asshole. I just… didn’t know how to. Saying it out loud makes it real and?—”
A beat. “Makes what real?”
I press the heel of my hand to my eyes and laugh once, wrecked. “I have a daughter, Ale.”
Silence. One heartbeat. Two. Then a rough exhale like he’s been punched and liked it. “Dio,” he whispers. “You—Matty, that’s… that’s incredible.”
“Her name is Livia.” I taste the name again because I can now. “She’s three. Copper hair, eyes that are all trouble. She grew up calling Cat ‘Auntie’ because that was the safest lie. We told her the truth when I met her.” My throat tightens. “She asked ifpapàsread stories and I said only the best ones. I didnotcry. Much.”
Ale laughs, a ragged edge to his tone. “I’m going to need a minute over here.”
I lean my head back against the rest, watching a cow leaning against a fence. “I keep thinking about what we were scared of at nineteen. It wasn’t this.”
“No,” he says, and I can hear Rory’s voice somewhere behind his, sweet and steel. “Now we’re scared of tiny socks and whether cursing in the kitchen will turn them feral.”
“I’m scared of the world I’m in.” The words feel heavier than the car. “Of bringing her into it. Of letting it write itself on her. I told Cat I’d burn it all down and move to Sicily if that’s what it takes.”
“For the record,” Ale interrupts, “you offering to retire on a sandy beach is the funniest thing I’ve heard all week. Second only to mypapàtrying to assemble a bassinet from the wrong brand’s instruction manual.”
A reluctant smile pulls at my mouth. “How’s that going?”
“He’s threatened to sue the screws.” Then, quieter, honest. “I’m terrified too, Matty. Every second. And I’ve got the fortress, and the cameras, and the cousins who keep showing up with casseroles and guns. I lie awake thinking about a world that touches things I love, and I want to take a knife to it. But—” His inhale steadies. “We figure it out. We build walls where they need walls and gardens where they need gardens. We set rules we didn’t have when we were kids. We do better.”
My chest goes tight with something like pride. “Look at you. Who put a father inside mycoglioneof a cousin?”
“Rory,” he answers without missing a beat. “And a baby who’s coming before we know it.” A pause. “Come home, Matty. There’s no safer place for your daughter than with us. With family. You know our fathers will put a guard on every corner of Belfast if that’s where she is, but I’d rather have you andher under the same roof as the rest of us while we hammer everything else into place.”
I picture Livia in her yellow wellies, brow furrowed at a crooked moat. I picture Cat’s hand finding mine in the grass. I picture the weight of a city with our name on it and what it demands in exchange.
“I can’t bring them yet. Not until I’m sure the last Quinlan embers are out and the papers Noreen’s getting for Cat arrive. I won’t move Cat until she says go, and I won’t move Livia until she’s ready, the security cameras work and the pantry has biscuits with the blue wrapper she likes.”
“Cazzo, you’re already apapà,” he murmurs, and it lands hard. “Fine. Finish what you have to finish. But promise me you’re not staying away because you’re punishing yourself.”
“I’m not.” The hedge breaks to a view of a gray sprawl and a church steeple. Town. “I’m… making sure the door I open doesn’t have a tripwire on the other side.”
“Good.” His voice warms. “And Matty, congratulations. That little girl is going to ruin you in the best way.”
“She already has.”
He clears his throat. “Tell Cat I said welcome to the madness. And tell Livia her new favorite uncle is bringing her a stuffed bear that looks like a meatball.”
“She’ll insist on naming it Lemon.”
“Of course she will.” A smile across the line, then, more serious. “Let me handle yourpapà. I’ll keep him off your neck for as long as possible. After that, he may start paddling across the Atlantic.”
“Grazie.” I swallow. “I’ll come home as soon as I can. I promise.”
“Soon,” he echoes. “And Matteo?”
