"Richard is dead!" My mother's voice was hysterical, too chaotic to make out clearly. "He was shot! It was you! You and those trashypeople you hang around with! You've been like this since you were little—seducing men! You ruined Richard's and my life, and now you've taken his life too! You murderer! You're a murderer!"
I sat on the hospital bed, phone pressed to my ear, completely still as I listened to everything she had to say.
In the past, every time I got a call from my mother, no matter what she said, I'd be upset for a long time. I'd wake up in the middle of the night replaying her cutting words, asking myself if maybe she was right, if maybe everything really was my fault.
But today, as her voice poured through the phone, I felt strangely calm.
Richard Vance was dead. That Richard Vance who everyone saw as a good teacher, good neighbor, good man. That animal who'd put his filthy hands on a little girl but was never suspected by anyone. Dead. Shot.
I was almost certain Enzo had something to do with this.
My mother was still cursing on the other end. I calmly pulled the phone from my ear and hit end call.
Enzo was still standing by the door, head slightly tilted. His expression showed he'd heard at least part of it.
"You went to see my mom?" I asked him.
"Yes." He turned to face me. "When I was looking for you, I wanted to see if you'd gone back there."
I looked into his eyes. He looked back. Some silent communication passed between us, no words needed.
"What was her reaction?"
The corner of Enzo's mouth moved almost imperceptibly. "Quite lively. Very good at cursing."
A fair assessment, but I knew he'd done far more than that. I wanted to ask if Richard's death was really his doing, but before I could ask, he gave me the answer.
Enzo tilted his head slightly and said quietly, "It was me. I'm sorry I didn't discuss it with you first."
Sorry.
Enzo had been apologizing to me almost daily lately. For differentthings, in different ways. Sometimes for something specific, sometimes just a random utterance after silence. Before, getting Enzo Falcone to say sorry would've been harder than making the sun rise in the west.
But now the word came from him more and more naturally, so natural it no longer sounded like a line but had become a way of breathing.
I didn't know how to respond to his apology. After he'd suddenly appeared and saved me and the baby, I couldn't keep blaming him. But I couldn't say anything about forgiveness either.
Awkward silence filled the space around us.
Enzo didn't say anything more. He gently pulled open the door and walked out. Before it closed, he glanced back at the baby in the bassinet, his gaze lingering on that tiny body wrapped in pink for two seconds, then the door shut.
The room was quiet again. Just the beeping of the heart monitor and the baby's even breathing.
I didn't lie back down, but I felt a strange sense of release in my heart.
Chapter Twenty-Five
Enzo
Chloe stopped telling me to leave.
Every time she tried, I'd just pretend to comply, duck out of sight for a while, then drift back to her side. After everything that had happened, I couldn't let her and the baby out of my sight.
Chloe needed me. Just as I needed her.
I wasn't naive enough to think she'd forgiven me. But lately, things between us had eased. A little.
I rented a small place in town, not too close to her rental, not too far. The house was tiny—one bedroom, one living room, a kitchen faucet that dripped nonstop, windows with weather stripping so old the wind leaked right through. Compared to my penthouse in New York, it was a joke.
