I paused in the hall and turned to face him. “What do you know? Is my sister okay?”
A nerve ticked in his jaw as he thought over how much to tell me. Then, with a grimace, he said, “I don’t know anything for certain, Cristiano. She hasn’t let much slip. Whatever is going on, she hasn’t confided in Allegra or me. I’m not even a hundred percent sure Victoria knows what’s happening with Scarlett right now. But I have eyes, man. She’s sick. She tries to pretend like she’s not, but every day I see her, she’s a little weaker. These babies are draining her, and taking care of Vito on top of it… Ciro was right to make her step back.”
Dante didn’t know any more than I already did. Maybe I shouldn’t wait for Scarlett to tell me when she was ready. She needed to be taking it easy, yet she was caring for not only her three children, but Ryan as well, while I was busy.
Determined to speak to her about it that night, I adjusted my suit jacket, and we continued on to the dining room. Inside, six elder Dons were already seated and were being served coffee as they waited for me.
Ciro stood at the head of the table. His seat was to my right, while Dante would take the one to my left. These two men were my best friends from childhood, and they would be beside me through the transition and after. The three of us could take on anything these old fucks wanted to throw at me. If they dared.
Anya
After a late night at the club the night before, overseeing the new plumbing and some other construction, I was glad to sleep in that morning. The past week had been exhausting, but I only had myself to blame for the state my poor club was in at the moment. It wouldn’t be long before she was back in fighting shape, however, and Iron Hand would be back on top once again.
Giggles coming from downstairs drew my attention as I went in search of coffee just before lunchtime. My hair was still damp from the shower, but the rest of me was ready for the real world. I could take my time today since all that was happening was more construction. There were a few interviews scheduled for bartenders and waitstaff, but they weren’t until later that evening.
Wanting to spend some time with my family, I continued toward the giggles. I recognized Sofia’s immediately, but there were several other girls’ mingled with hers, and the soft chorus brought a smile to my face as I entered the family room.
Scarlett, Victoria, and Allegra sat on the two sofas facing each other, a tray of coffee between them as they watched the girls playing across the room. The dolls I’d sent Sofia the year before were in high demand as the girls carefully dressed and brushed their doll’s hair. Their play area was set up much like their mothers’ area was, with a small table set with a tray and teacups. As they finished dressing and primping their dolls, they sat them at the table and pretended to be the women across from them, making their mothers laugh.
“This is the best entertainment I’ve had all week,” Scarlett murmured as she lifted her mug to her lips.
“I hope that’s decaf,” I scolded as I sat down beside my sister-in-law, watching her twin with narrowed eyes. “I hear there are two more Donati brats growing in there.”
Scarlett’s hand rubbed lovingly over her slightly distended stomach, a ghost of a smile gracing her lips. “You heard right. Twins. Again. And yes, this is definitely decaf.” Her lips twisted with distaste. “Shh. I’m trying to pretend it’s the real stuff. Maybe my brain won’t know it’s not caffeinated. I could really use a shot of energy right about now.”
She wasn’t kidding. There were bruise-like dark circles under her eyes. Her skin looked translucent, but not in a healthy way. Instead of glowing, as she had with her previous two pregnancies, she looked sick and exhausted.
“Jenny said last night you two are going to brunch on Sunday,” Allegra commented, sipping from her mug as I filled my own after making sure which pot held the real stuff and not the poor excuse that was decaf.
I smiled, nodding. “Yes. I’ve been wanting to catch up with her.” I spoke to Jenny at least once a week, but I knew not everything could be discussed over the phone. I wanted to make sure my young friend was doing okay. After she lost her mother, the two of us bonded. That bond wasn’t broken by my relocating back to St. Petersburg, thankfully. Jenny was only a teenager, but she knew more about what had been going on in my life the past five years than anyone else I knew.
“Mommy.” A little girl who was the spitting image of Allegra came over, still clutching the doll she was playing with in her hands. “I’m hungry.”
“Adley, we’re going to eat in a little while, honey. Play with your cousins for a little longer, and then we’ll have lunch. Okay?”
She sighed dramatically. “Fine,” Adley grumbled, stomping back over to her friends. “She said wait.”
I bit my lip to hide my smile. “Where are the boys?” I asked to hide my amusement.
“They’re up in Theo’s room,” Victoria informed me. “Actually, I was going to go up and get them. If Adley is getting grumpy, then I know the others won’t be far behind.”
I stood before she could get to her feet. “I’ll herd them down,” I assured her. “I need to grab my keys anyway.”
Theo’s room was right across from his sister’s. The door was closed, so I knocked before pushing it open enough to peek inside. “Anyone hungry in here?”
Two heads snapped around at the sound of my voice. Theo and Zayne sat on the floor in front of the television, some battle free-for-all game on that Theo could talk about for hours without getting bored.
Zayne jumped to his feet and ran over to hug my waist. “I didn’t know you were here, Miss Anya.”
I cupped his chin, smiling down at him fondly. “I decided to take part of the day off. It’s good to have a little time to one’s self, right?”
“Can you tell that to my dad?” Zayne groused. “He’s done nothing but work with Zio Cristiano all week. I haven’t seen him much lately.”
“I’m sure it’s important, or he wouldn’t be gone so much,” I assured him. “Don’t be too hard on him, kid. You’ll understand one day.”
“Is it lunchtime?” Theo asked as he turned off his game. “I’m starving.”
“Me too,” Zayne second. “I could eat a horse right now.”
“Dude, that’s gross,” I told him with a shake of my head. “Horse tastes nasty.”
Two sets of eyes blinked up at me. “You’ve eaten horse before, Tetka?” Theo asked skeptically.
“Hey, don’t judge.” I held the door open for them. “Let’s go eat. Don’t tell your mothers I said I’ve eaten horse before. It will make them sad for me.”
As I started to follow them, movement in the corner of my eye had me pausing. Turning my head ever so slightly, I met a set of brown eyes that filled my dreams. My heart skipped in my chest, and it was hard to breathe for a moment. Those eyes continued to hold mine, unblinking, haunting.
“Tetka, are you coming?” Theo asked impatiently.
“You go,” I urged without glancing at him. “I’ll be right there.”
As their running feet descended the stairs, I still stood there, frozen at the sight of the miniature version of Cristiano sitting so quietly in the corner of my nephew’s bedroom. There was a pillow shoved behind his back, and he held a book I wasn’t sure so young a child could actually read.
Leaving the door open, I took a step toward the little boy. His fingers tightened around the pages of the book in his hand, and I paused. “Hi, Ryan,” I murmured softly, sensing how scared he was. My heart ached because I could read the terror in his eyes, on every inch of his beautiful face. “My name is Anya.”
“H-Hi,” he greeted, his voice weak, barely above a whisper.
“Aren’t you hungry? We should go get something to eat.”
He shook his head, but his eyes didn’t blink once. “Not hungry.”
Feeling oddly nervous, I sat down, right there in the middle of the floor. “Okay, then. I’ll just sit here until the others come back and keep you company.” I crossed my leg
s and sat back on my hands. “Can you read that book, or are you just looking at the pictures?”
“I-I can read,” he informed me, his chin jerking up ever so slightly with pride.
“Wow! I’m impressed. I couldn’t read until I was much older than you.” I knew he was closer to four than three, but there weren’t many kids I knew who could read at that age, if any. “It looks like an interesting story from the book cover.”
“It’s about a boy who wants to be a hero. Like me. I want to be a hero one day,” he confided, his cheeks filling with pink.
“A hero is a good aspiration. I don’t think I know any heroes personally.” I grimaced, thinking it over for a moment. “Yeah, I don’t know a single one.”
“This book tells you how to be a hero,” he informed me, his brow pinched. “Do… Do you want me to read it to you?”
My heart melted at how unsure he sounded even as it ached for the haunted look in his brown eyes. “I would like that. Maybe then I will know how to find a real hero, right?”
He nodded and carefully turned back to the first page of the book. As he began to read, his voice shook, but with each page he finished, he sounded surer of himself. As I listened, I couldn’t keep my gaze from eating up the sight of him. Ryan looked so much like his father, it hurt my heart. But it was his eyes that were drowning me. I knew that look, and it made my palms sweat even as my heart turned to ice.
Someone hurt Ryan; I could feel it in the tension that filled the room. The way he would look up at me every few seconds to make sure I hadn’t moved closer to him. How his lips were bloodless, and he flinched if I so much as took a deeper breath. His little fingers wrinkled every page he turned because he was holding on to them like a lifeline, and it was breaking my heart.
Child abuse of any child drove me to the brink of insanity at times. Realizing this child, Cristiano’s son, was abused—could still be suffering from abuse—killed me. In the past, before I left that part of my life behind, I did pro bono work for victims of abuse. I wanted to end their nightmares, make the world a little safer for them. My advocacy for victims wasn’t from any firsthand experience myself. Adrian never would have let that happen had either of our parents tried to abuse Taras or me. But just the thought of someone harming something so defenseless as a child was too heartbreaking not to offer them help.
“That’s how you become a hero,” he finished a few minutes later, closing the book with fingers that shook. “The end.”
“You know…” I sat forward, slowly so as not to spook him. I wasn’t moving closer, merely straightening where I was seated. But even at the unhurried pace, he flinched as I moved to sit right beside him. “I have a few books you might like about kids who become heroes.”
“Really?”
I nodded. “But I’m not sure you’re old enough to read them yet. They aren’t meant for little boys to read. Maybe your dad could read them to you instead.”
His chin lowered, and he shook his head. “Papa has been busy with Zayne’s papa. He doesn’t have time to read to me.”
“Well, I could read them to you,” I offered shyly. “I had fun listening to you read to me. Maybe you will have fun if I read to you?”
The hesitation mixed with eagerness in his eyes made me want to pull him into my arms and just hold him, but I remained where I was, no so much as breathing as I waited for him to think about that idea.
“L-Like this?” he finally asked. “Could we sit like this?”
“With me on one side of the room and you on the other?” He gave a single nod, and I smiled. “We can do sit however you want, Ryan.”
“Could… Would you come to my house and read to me? I don’t like this place so much.”
That gave me pause. “Were Theo and Zayne mean to you?” The thought of either one of them hurting this little boy made me see red for a moment. I loved both my nephew and Zayne, but I wouldn’t hesitate to rat them out to their mothers if they were being mean little shits to someone so small and defenseless as Ryan.
“No. They’re nice, I guess. I just… I want to be in my own room.”
“Understandable.” But to go to Cristiano’s home… Be under the same roof as the man who’d decimated my heart, I wasn’t sure if I was that strong of a person. It was one thing to be in the same city; it was another altogether to be in the same fucking house.
As if he could sense my indecision, Ryan’s chin trembled. “Y-You don’t have to if you don’t want to. I…understand.”
Decision made, I gave him a warm smile. “So are we talking your bedtime, or any time of the day? What works for you, kid?”
His face melted into the first sign of a smile. It was tiny, barely there at all, but I would take what he was willing to give me. Because that small, nearly nonexistent smile was like being handed a million dollars. He was giving me something rare and special; somehow, I knew that, and I cherished it.
“I go to bed at eight thirty, every night. Could you come read to me then?”
“It’s a date,” I promised him with a wink.
“Ryan?” Scarlett’s voice was soft as she entered the bedroom. Seeing me sitting there, she widened her eyes, but she didn’t comment on it as she gazed at her nephew. “Come on, kiddo. It’s time to eat.”
“I’m not hungry.”
“Just a little, Ryan. Please?” She held out her hand for him, offering him her protection, but he seemed to cower back against the pillow.
I touched Scarlett’s leg, pulling her attention down to me. “Maybe Ryan and I could have a tray brought up? He was entertaining me so much by reading to me just now. Maybe the two of us could eat, and he can read to me some more.”
She blinked in surprise. “He was reading to you?” she asked, unable to mask her wonder.
I nodded, pride in the little boy beaming out of my smile. “He’s very good at it, too. So how about it, Aunt Scarlett? Can we eat up here?”
She smiled back, looking relieved. She knew she could trust me with her nephew, and the concern I could read on her face for him was a silent plea for me to love him as much as she did. “I think I can arrange that. I’ll have something brought up to you.” Hesitantly, she slid her gaze back to Ryan. “But only if he promises to eat something.”
He sat there for a long moment but finally gave her a stiff nod. Scarlett and I both let out a soft sigh in relief. “Okay, then. Sandwiches and salad okay for you, Anya?”
“Toss in some chips of any kind,” I requested. “I’m starving.”
“You got it,” she said, then mouthed “Thank you,” as she left the room.
Once she was gone, I turned my focus back on my new friend. “Have any more books you can read me?”
Keeping his eyes trained on me, he pulled another book out from behind his pillow. This one was about a hero too, and I knew he was in desperate need of one. From whom, I didn’t know, but I would find out. One way or another.
Chapter 5
Cristiano
Ryan was already in his pajamas when I went in to tuck him in. That caught me by surprise, because I always had to coax him to get ready for bed. But as I entered his bedroom, he was already in his bathroom, standing on the footstool so he could reach the sink, brushing his teeth.
This, too, was a regular fight to make happen, but instead of asking what this tiny miracle was about, I stood in the doorway, watching him meticulously complete his task. I felt a change in him, but I didn’t understand it. He seemed a little less tense; his face, which tended to stay pale except for when he was ill, looked healthier.
“How was your day?” I asked him as once he rinsed out his mouth. “Did you have fun with your cousins at Zia Victoria’s?”
His little shoulders lifted in a careless shrug. “It was okay.” Wiping his mouth on a hand towel, he jumped down and ran around me to his bed. By the time I reached him, he was already under the covers, sitting up with all his pillows piled behind him for comfort.
My brows lifted at this new position he was
in. “What are you doing, figlio? It’s time for bed. That means lying down.”
“I have a guest coming, Papa,” he informed me with the slightest trace of his old excitement. Just the barest little flash of his former self was under the surface, but it was there nonetheless, and that gave me pause. Whatever the reasons, I was glad to finally see some of the real Ryan shining through.
I sat on the edge of his bed, however, curious as to this guest my son was expecting. “Guest, you say? Just who is this guest?”
His fists clutched at the covers he was under, his knuckles turning white, but he didn’t hesitate to answer me. But his answer, that came in such a rush it took me a few seconds to actually decipher, sent me reeling. “Her name is Anya. She ate lunch with me today and let me read to her. She was nice…and she didn’t scare me.”
The first thing I understood was the name he spoke. Anya. Fuck, just the sound of her name sent my heart rate skyrocketing. My son met Anya. She didn’t scare him, unlike every other adult female in the world’s population.
Anya ate lunch with my son, and he wasn’t afraid of her. He ate a meal. For the first time in weeks, he actually ate more than a few tiny bites in one sitting. That was why he looked more energetic, why his skin looked healthier. The boy probably had a full stomach for the first time in forever.
He read to her. He only ever read to me, and only when I made him. Yet, as Ryan told me all the books he read to her, I realized he must have done it for at least an hour with her.
But then the realization of what my son was really telling me hit me hard. Anya was coming here?
“She said she has some books she will read to me,” Ryan informed me, his eyes full of that same excitement from moments before. “You don’t care, do you, Papa? She can come, right?”
“So she’s coming just to read to you?” I asked, my voice oddly low. I quickly cleared my throat before speaking again. “If you want me to read to you, all you have to do is ask, Ryan.”
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