Chapter 7
My son’s name was Nico.
Elena cried when Matteo said it.
Not because she disliked the name.
Because someone else had named the child she was told she buried.
I understood the violence in that.
“Nico what?”
Matteo hesitated.
“Rivers.”
Elena looked at him.
He swallowed.
“I insisted he keep his mother’s name.”
That was the first thing Matteo said that softened her expression even slightly.
“Where is he?”
“With a family outside Morelli territory.”
“Who?”
“I promised.”
I stepped forward.
“That promise is over.”
Matteo looked at me.
“No.”
Interesting.
Even afraid, he refused.
“Cassian, I gave that child to people who believed they were protecting him from this family. If I simply hand you their names before they know the truth, I become the same kind of man Vivienne used.”
I wanted to hate him.
I couldn’t.
Not fully.
Elena understood first.
“Call them.”
Matteo looked at her.
“Let them hear me.”
He nodded.
Twenty minutes later, a woman answered a secure line.
Matteo called her Margaret.
Elena spoke.
“My name is Elena Rivers.”
Silence.
Then the woman began crying.
That sound changed the room.
“You’re alive.”
Elena closed her eyes.
“Yes.”
Margaret whispered something away from the phone.
A child asked who she was talking to.
My son.
I had never heard his voice.
My knees nearly stopped working.
Elena held the phone with both hands.
“Nico?”
Silence.
Then a small voice.
“Who’s this?”
Elena could not answer.
I put one hand against the table, not touching her, just staying near.
She tried again.
“I’m your mommy.”
The boy went quiet.
Margaret began crying harder.
Then Nico said something so simple it destroyed every adult in the room.
“I have one?”
Elena covered her mouth.
I turned away.
Three years old.
A child who believed he simply did not have a mother.
Matteo whispered, “Vivienne told Margaret the mother died during birth.”
Of course.
Another death.
Another neat story.
Elena finally managed to speak.
“Yes, baby.”
Her voice broke.
“You have one.”
Then Nico asked:
“Do I have a daddy too?”
I closed my eyes.
May you like
Elena looked at me.
For the first time that night, neither of us knew who should answer.
