Page 111 of Sin & Secrets

Everything inside me screams for me to go to him, but Giuliano’s gentle hold on my shoulder keeps me grounded.

Slowly, Rocco lowers himself into the couch, his expression emotionless as he addresses me directly. “What have you done?”

His words feel like a knife, burying itself deep between my ribs.

I didn’t know how he would react. I couldn’t bear to imagine it. Even when Mia and I waited those excruciating minutes for the result of the fifth pregnancy test. Even when we counted back the weeks to be absolutely positive, it washis.

Butthis? To respond as if somehow I was to blame? As if this was my fault?

My desire to leave Brooklyn suddenly reignites with a vengeance. I want to get away from the man who would so quickly turn on me. On us.

“Rocco, this is the mother of your child, my grandchild,” Giuliano’s voice is outraged on my behalf. “I taught you better than that.”

But Rocco ignores him. “You went to him? Instead of me?”

“She knew I could offer her something that you would be incapable of doing.”

“Shut the fuck up!” Rocco yells at his father. “Answer me, Cas.”

His rage ignites my own. It’s like a tinderbox, always ready to explode at this point.

“No one leaves the Guild, Rocco. You told me that!” I shout right back.

“You are not a part of the Guild,” Rocco growls.

“But my son will be its heir.”

The fire in his eyes resides just enough for me to see it—the longing, the hope, the joy he has restrained by pure willpower.

He wants this. He wants my son.

But I can’t live in a reality where that’s even a possibility.

“I must say, it felt as if I was having Déjà vu when you came here, Miss Bellini. You do resemble Giuseppina. It could have been seventeen years ago if I hadn’t been so gray.”

I find myself smiling a little at that.

Everyone always said that I look like my mom, although I never personally saw it. I’ve always idolized her for her beauty and her kindness. Up until these last few weeks, I didn’t think she was even capable of doing anything wrong.

I address Rocco directly, “I came to Giuliano to ask for permission to leave the Guild on behalf of my son. The way my mother once did for me.”

The silence that follows is almost unbearable.

Rocco seems to have retreated into himself entirely.

Giuliano, however, is more than comfortable filling the silence. “I was just telling Miss Bellini about that day. She doesn’t remember, but Giuseppina brought her along to that meeting. You were eight years old, but your mother carried you the whole time. You were fast asleep.”

Rocco slowly turns to look at his father.

“She’d packed already,” Giuliano continues. “She was dragging a suitcase behind her too. Deceptively strong, that woman. She would have fallen straight to her knees to beg for asylum if I hadn’t stopped her.”

“But Giuseppina had already made her oath to the Guild. I told her there was no way I could let her leave, but that wasn’t why she was there. She was there to beg on behalf of her daughter. After the Vitale massacre, she couldn’t bear to see young Miss Bellini grow up in this environment.”

Giuliano squeezes my shoulder again. “Of course, being a father myself, I completely understood her suffering.”

“You were no father to me,” Rocco growls.

“Silence.”

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