Chapter 4 - DAMIAN’S VERSION OF STRENGTH
Damian refused to apologize.
That was almost easier for Antonio to respect than the relatives who immediately claimed they had misunderstood.
“You’re turning the boy soft,” Damian said.
They were alone in Antonio’s office.
“You tied him down.”
“My mother tied him down.”
“You took his food.”
“He needed consequences.”
“For spilling water?”
“For learning that being Antonio Bellaforte’s son doesn’t mean the world bends around him.”
Antonio studied his cousin.
Damian had grown up under Lavinia too.
He was sixteen years younger than Antonio, but their childhood stories carried the same architecture.
Food as reward.
Isolation as punishment.
Humiliation mistaken for humility.
Antonio asked, “Did she do it to you?”
Damian laughed.
“Of course.”
“You think it helped?”
“Look at us.”
Antonio did.
Damian was successful inside the organization.
Feared.
Obedient to his mother even at thirty-nine.
Divorced twice.
Estranged from a teenage daughter who lived with her mother in Arizona.
Unable to answer a question about fear without turning it into philosophy.
Antonio suddenly saw something different.
Not proof that Lavinia’s methods worked.
Their cost.
“Your daughter speaks to you?”
Damian’s smirk vanished.
“That has nothing to do with Lucas.”
“It has everything to do with Lucas.”
Damian stood.
“Don’t use Sofia against me.”
“Then stop using what happened to us as justification for what you did to my son.”
The word us landed.
Damian stared at him.
It was the first time Antonio had admitted that what happened in childhood might have been wrong.
Damian left without another word.
Later that evening Antonio called his sister Francesca, who lived in Boston and had kept herself distant from family operations for nearly twenty years.
When he asked what she remembered about their father’s discipline, Francesca went quiet.
Then she said:
“Antonio, Dad used to fight with Lavinia about you.”
Antonio stood from his chair.
“About what?”
“About how she treated you when he was away.”
The third clue arrived without drama.
May you like
His father had not simply been absent.
He had objected.
