I couldn’t fucking believe I’d told her. It was reckless.
That story? It was supposed to die with me. But I told it anyway, thinking out of desperation maybe it would make her realize she was better off without me.
I was ready for that. For her disgust. For her to walk away.
But I’d braced for the wrong thing.
She still wanted me. And I had no fucking clue how to handle her compassion.
It shook something loose inside me. Rattled the foundations of my world. Made me feelweak, and that was so much worse.
The past belonged in the past. There was a reason I never revisited it. There was no point. You couldn’t change it. And trying to reframe it—to assign new meanings and put different labels on things—made me question my role in it all.
Was I the victim? Or the one who let it happen?
Nah. I wasn’t a goddamn victim.
“Fuck!” Another strike sent a sharper pain through my arm. I stepped back from the bag, my chest heaving as I tried to catch my breath.
My phone rang from the bench. The screen lit up with Cosimo’s name.
I answered on speaker. “Yeah?”
“We got the Colombian contract,” he said. “Alvarez negotiated an extra ten percent out of us, but whatever. Nothing major in the grand scheme.”
I flexed my hands, wincing at the dull ache. “Congrats. How’d you pull it off?”
“Flew down there yesterday. Three-hour meeting. Explained to Alvarez how with Messero and us joining ranks, it’ll take the authorities a long time to stop us from moving product—that is, if they even have a case. Meanwhile, the other options they’ve been considering won’t stand a chance. I made it clear we’d put every resource into taking them down. Called their so-called safer bet a goddamn fantasy.”
“You didn’t think to use that angle earlier?”
“I did. But I didn’t know who the other buyer was until now. Once I had a name, I could paint a better picture. Show them exactly how fucked they’d be if they went with them.”
“You got a name?” I hadn’t brought up the Finger Lakes connection to Mia. With everything going on, it wasn’t exactly top of mind.
“Yeah. The Santoros.”
The name lit something faint in the back of my brain. “Sounds familiar…”
“They were big in New York decades ago,” Cos said. “Lost a war to the Riccis about thirty years back. Got run out of the city.”
I dragged a hand through my hair. “What the hell do they want with us? We weren’t even part of that war.”
“No fucking clue. This whole thing’s sketchy. They’ve been dormant for decades, but it looks like they’ve rebuilt and are making a move. They think they’ve got the connections to make it work, but they’re wrong. I told Alvarez their story's bullshit.”
“You think the Santoros have tricked him somehow? Why even consider them?”
“Fuck if I know. Alvarez doesn’t overshare, but he listened to me. After a whole hour talking to his team behind closed doors, he came out saying they're going with us.”
“You already told Dad?”
“He’s pleased. Mom too.”
Just the mention of our mother put me back on edge.
I was done listening to her. Done doing her bidding.
I should have stopped a long time ago. But it wasn’t until I revisited that summer—and saw Mia’s reaction—that it finally landed.
