Chapter 11
Mara read the investigation report before agreeing to see Enzo again.
Her response was not relief.
It was fury.
Partly at Lucinda.
Partly at Enzo.
During their next video call, Mara did not soften anything.
“You believed her.”
Enzo accepted it.
“Yes.”
“For three years.”
“Yes.”
“You never came looking.”
“No.”
“Why?”
Enzo could have blamed Lucinda.
He did not.
“Pride.”
Mara stared at him.
“More.”
“Anger.”
“More.”
He looked down.
“I thought if you could leave Lily, then chasing you would make me pathetic.”
Mara’s eyes filled.
“So instead you let your daughter believe I didn’t want her.”
“I told her you left.”
“That is the same thing to a child.”
He nodded.
“I know now.”
The words did not fix anything.
But they were true.
Mara told him something else.
She had nearly filed for custody twice.
Both times she stopped.
Not only because she feared Enzo.
Because she feared what a public fight would expose Lily to.
The Marchetti name came with armed security, family conflict, and a world Mara wanted her daughter away from.
“I thought you had chosen all of that over us,” she said.
“I did choose too much of it.”
That surprised her.
Enzo continued.
“I’m changing that.”
“Because you want me back?”
“No.”
He forced himself to say the next part correctly.
“Because Lily deserves it even if you never come back.”
Mara went silent.
That was the first thing Enzo said that seemed to reach her.
They agreed to begin planning a controlled reunion between mother and daughter.
Not immediately.
Dr. Grant would guide it.
No photographers.
No family audience.
No dramatic surprise.
May you like
Lily had lost three years.
Nobody would make her first reunion perform emotional closure for adults.
