Page 118 of Hidden Memories

I do love my dad. He’s always the man who will step up in times like these. If there’s one thing I learned from him that proves valuable in any relationship, it’s to be proactive and not reactive. Anticipating needs, that’s a big deal.

I step closer, the creak of my boots on the wooden floor the only sound between us. “Theo is about to have his mind blown. Especially if Dad takes him to the old heap. There are positively ancient red worms in those mountains.”

She laughs lightly, but we gaze at each other with so much more to say. It would be nice to ride and just ignore everything. Rarely, shit,neverhave I wanted my brothers to swoop in and take care of my problems, but I do wish Enzo and Rio would come in here right now to tell us the case is closed. It’s not that I’m not willing to roll up my sleeves and get my hands dirty, I just want Kat’s suffering to end now.

Ineedit to end. Not only for her, but every moment this goes on I live with the anxiety of the social worker wanting to do a drop-in. I hardly told Owen to keep Kat and Theo a secret either. It’s not the right thing to do, ask a child to manage an adult’s business.

She sighs, moving on from our small talk. “I can’t stop thinking about all this new information.” She turns back tothe tack. “It’s just… the initials, Angel Lake, the outbuilding—it all feels so much bigger than I imagined. And the people Nic worked with… were there a bunch of snakes at Dad’s company or just Nic and the Mafia?” She laughs at herself. “I can’t believe I used the wordjustin the sentence.”

Last night, we were both exhausted when we fell into bed. Neither of us wanted to talk any more than we had. We made love like two people who wanted to forget the world. But reality struck again with the sunrise.

“Do you know anyone at all from Pacific Dreams who could be M or D?” I ask carefully.

She hesitates, chewing on her bottom lip. “I don’t know. Maybe. There were hundreds, maybe a thousand employees at Pacific Dreams—executives, contractors. I used to see the same faces at Christmas parties and charity galas. Nic liked to keep things separate, though. He’d say I was there to look pretty, and to be honest, Santi, those were rare times I didn’t give a crap when he said it. I found all of that stuff excruciating and boring.”

Jealousy bites into me, sharp and mean. It’s not fair, I know that. But it’s there, tangled up with the rage I’ve carried since the day I learned what Nic did to her.

He had years—years with this woman, waking up beside her, watching her laugh at things I’ll never know. He had her in silk dresses; her arm looped through his as if she belonged there.

I hate him. Even in death, I hate him.

I force a casual tone. “Do you remember anyone who stood out? Anyone he was especially close to?”

She exhales slowly, taking a bridle off a hook. “Trust me, I’ve been racking my brain since yesterday, and there is something. Maybe. There was a woman… Melissa, I think. She ran some of the finance departments. Nic always spoke highly of her. And then there was Derek—who I think he said was his lead lawyer. They were at almost every event, always hovering near Nic.”

Melissa and Derek. M and D. Maybe they were working with the ’Ndrangheta, too, possibly still trying to cover tracks from the sidelines. I cross my arms, leaning back against the wall. “Do you think they could’ve been involved?”

Her shoulders lift in a small shrug, but her eyes are distant. “I don’t know. Maybe. Nic kept so much hidden from me, Santi. It’s like the more I think about it, the more I realize how little I knew about him.”

The sadness in her voice slices through me. I want to tell her it’s not her fault, that she couldn’t have known what Nic was capable of. But what would that change? The truth is, Nic isn’t just a shadow from her past—he’s her trauma.

And that’s what eats at me. I’ve built my life on being capable, being strong, being the man who steps in when others fail. But no amount of success or strength can guarantee I’m enough to rewrite the weight of her history with him.

He’s her mistake, her lesson, her pain. What am I? A promise she might not believe in yet.

Seeing her so determined to confront the mess Nic left behind churns up something raw in me. The youngest of the boys, I’ve always been clawing, striving to prove I belonged, that I was enough—not just for the family but for myself. I built an empire alongside my brothers, carved out my place, and still, there’s that voice buried deep inside me that whispers I’ll never measure up.

It’s the same voice her father’s cold, patronizing stare once echoed, cutting deeper than I ever let on. It creeps inlike an old wound, barely healed and always ready to split open. The doubt. The fear. The question that’s haunted me since the moment her father looked me in the eye and made it clear I’d never be good enough.

What do I have to offer her? A woman who’s survived worse than I can fathom, who’s rebuilt herself from the wreckage of a life someone else burned down.

What if all I can give her is another fire?

No matter how far we’ve come, some scars are slow to fade. Growth is a sunrise, not a light switch. And as much as I’ve tried to leave those insecurities behind, sometimes they still reach for me in the dark.

She turns to face me fully now, her arms crossed over her chest. There’s a spark of defiance in her gaze. “I can’t just sit back and let everyone else solve this for me. I need to take control of my life, Santi. For Theo, for me.”

This strength of hers? It’s why I fell. But seeing it now, seeing her stand her ground while I battle the instinct to carry her through this, it guts me in ways I never saw coming.

She doesn’t need saving. Not by me. That terrifies me more than any enemy I could put in the ground. Because if I can’t save her—if I can’t fix this, if I can’t shield her—then what am I to her? What do I become?

This fear is a whole new kind of helplessness. This is a stark contrast to the way I usually handle a crisis—headfirst, reckless, the effortless charge of a rebel with nothing to lose.

But with her? I’ve got everything to lose.

“Taking control doesn’t mean shutting people out,” I say, pushing off the wall and closing the space between us. “You don’t have to prove anything to me, Kat. You’re already more than enough.”

She looks up at me, her lips parting as if to argue, butthe words don’t come. Instead, she sighs, her shoulders relaxing just slightly. “It’s not about proving something to you. It’s about proving it to myself.”

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