Page 143 of Ricardo

I sat through her sobbing, her rage, her pleading, her promises, her accusations. Monster. Thief. Conti bastard. She called me worse than that, and I took every word because Dante’s heartbeat was steady and strong and his little body was growing safely inside her.

That was enough.

When he was born, my father used every connection he had to make sure full custody was mine.

No delays. No questions. No chance for Liliana’s family to interfere.

Dante came home with me.

He was so small.

Angry, too. Red-faced and furious, as if he already understood far too much about the world. I remember holding him in the middle of the night while he screamed hard enough to turn purple, and thinking that I had never loved anything more in my life.

I tried to give Liliana a chance.

She was sober then. Furious still, but clear-headed. The first time she held him, it was at my father’s house with my people standing close enough to intervene if necessary. She cried tears of joy when he wrapped his tiny fist around her finger. She told me she wanted to be better. She told me she would do it for him.

For Dante.

For us.

I wanted to believe her so badly that I didn’t let my doubts interfere.

Then I found her high with our newborn son asleep in the next room.

That was the end.

There are moments in a man’s life when a decision becomes so clear it leaves no room for grief until later. I looked at her, at the powder on the table, at the empty look in her eyes, and whatever remained of the boy who had loved Liliana Castelli died there.

Ricardo Conti, the man, was born.

I took my son home.

I never let her see him again.

As far as I was concerned, Dante was mine.

Mine to raise. Mine to protect. Mine to love enough for both of us.

Dante does not know all of that.

How could I tell him?

How does a father look at his son and say, ‘your mother chose drugs over you over and over again’?

I could not do it.

So I let him believe a different version of the tale. That I was young. That I got a girl pregnant in college. That she was not suited to this life, and I decided my son belonged with me, with the family, with the Contis.

It is not the whole truth.

It is kinder than the truth.

At least, I have always told myself that.

My gaze drifts toward the closed office door.

Down the hall, Julia is working, unaware that my brother has dragged ghosts into my office and left me alone with them.