Page 112 of Sin & Secrets

The word is chillingly sharp, and I find myself shying away from Giuliano’s touch.

“I offered her a deal out of the goodness of my own heart,” Giuliano offers me an apologetic smile. “I allowed her to choose between her husband and her child.”

This news had almost crushed me when I first heard it.

My mother had always brushed off any questions about my father, always claiming that he abandoned us.

But the picture of us she kept…the fact she never took another lover. —had she loved him? Had she cried for him as she took me away?

Either way, she hadn’t hesitated in her choice. Something that, until two days ago, I might have struggled to understand.

But now? Knowing my child is now growing inside of me, I know there is nothing I wouldn’t sacrifice to protect them. And if offered the same choice, I wouldn’t hesitate either.

“What did he offer you?” Rocco says quietly.

I say nothing.

“What did he fucking offer you?”

“Do not speak to her like that!” Giuliano roars.

Rocco stands, towering over him. “You have no authority anymore, old man. You have nothing to offer us.”

“My my, that temper. It’s no wonder she came here without telling you,” Giuliano tuts. “And for my grandchild? Rocco, I would offer the world.”

I can see it in Rocco’s face; that pent-up rage is going to explode at any second.

So I stand up. “He wants to be able to visit.”

Rocco blinks at me in confusion.

“He will let me go as long as he can visit and offer my son the choice to rejoin the Guild when he turns eighteen,” I clarify.

He turns back to his father. “So that’s your plan? You’re going to slowly turn my own son against me?”

“You think so little of me.”

“I thinknothingof you.”

“My offer was more than reasonable, don’t you think? Considering the risks I would need to take to ensure that you never found them,” Giuliano nods at me. “I was just explaining this when you so rudely barged in.”

“I will not allow it,” Rocco’s intense gaze meets mine. “Cas, we’re leaving now.”

But I shake my head.

There’s no world where Rocco lets me leave. There’s no world where I can go anywhere with him, and I don’t completely lose all my resolve.

I shake my head because he isn’t only the father of my son, he’s the murderer of my father and the don of the Italian Mafia. There is no world where my child will grow up safely around him.

Even if, by some miracle, Rocco lets us go. I would live in constant fear that he would come back for us at some point. Or worse, his enemies would discover us and use us to destroy him.

He can’t know where we go, can’t have any hope of finding us.

“I can’t.”

Rocco searches my face desperately for another answer, but I don’t show him anything. This is the sacrifice I will never stop making.

“As much as it pains me to agree with my son,” Giuliano interrupts us. “On reflection, my offer could now be seen as ill-advised, given that Rocco is aware of our plans. Perhaps we could all take a seat and discuss this as adults?”

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