Our Family Photo Without You

So I tried a different way.

I played every card I had left and got Lorenzo Moretti to put his name on that thirty-day dissolution of the alliance, a cooling-off pact between two old bloodlines.

Now we were on day twenty-seven.

It was also the first day my son called him "Uncle Lorenzo" on his own.

When we walked out of the portrait studio, Lorenzo was still rooted to the spot, the way a made man freezes when a shot comes from a direction he never watched.

It wasn't until my son and I had almost stepped into the elevator that he snapped back to himself.

"Wait!"

He came after us in long strides, and the two soldiers flanking the corridor stepped aside without being told.

The shock and panic in his eyes were almost impossible to hide.

He reached out, as if to catch hold of his son.

To ask him why he'd changed what he called him.

To ask why he'd suddenly turned so distant.

But just then his phone rang, cutting across everything.

A name jumped on the screen.

Gianna Bellandi.

Lorenzo went still.

The call connected, and a woman's voice came through, thick with tears.

"Lorenzo, Nico got into a fight with another boy and he's hurt, he keeps crying for his padrino…"

"I really don't know what to do…"

Wronged, helpless, frightened.

Every word landed precisely where Lorenzo carried the old debt, the bullet his hand still drifted toward beneath his collarbone.

The elevator doors slid open.

I stood inside, holding my son's hand.

Through the narrowing gap I watched the expression on Lorenzo's face change, bit by bit.

Worry.

Hesitation.

A struggle.

And then, in the end, all of it hardened into a decision.

In the end he still chose Gianna and her son.

The same as all the countless times before.

Lorenzo gripped his phone and said in a low voice,

"Don't worry. I'm on my way."

Then he looked up at us.

A trace of unease finally surfaced in those black eyes that were always so calm, the eyes of a Boss who had ordered men into the ground without blinking.

"Adriana, you two go on home first."

"I'll explain tonight when I'm back."

Explain?

I almost found it funny.

Some things, explained once, are a misunderstanding.

Explained a hundred times, they're a choice.

The elevator doors closed all the way.

Sealing his figure away.

A few minutes later the roar of an engine rose from the underground garage.

That black Maybach pulled away from the studio.

And pulled away, completely, from the last of my son's hopes.

In the quiet of the underground garage, two of his enforcers waiting by the pillar pretended not to watch us.

My son suddenly stopped walking.

The next second, he threw himself into my arms.

Everything he'd held down for so long finally broke loose.

Scalding tears fell in big drops, soaking the hem of my dress.

My chest ached.

I wrapped my arms gently around him.

His shoulders shook with crying that wouldn't stop.

After a long while, he lifted his small, flushed face.

His voice so soft I could barely hear it.

And yet so firm it made my nose sting.

"Mama."

"Let's not want Papa anymore, okay?"

In that moment, my eyes suddenly burned.

So the first one to learn how to give up.

Wasn't me.

It was the child who had once loved his father the most, the little blood heir of the Moretti name, holding that toy car so tight his knuckles had gone white.

Back at the riverside estate.

I went straight upstairs and dragged a few large suitcases out of the closet.

I started packing my things and my son's.

Papers, clothes, the documents that let a Castellano cross any border untouched.

One by one, into the cases.

Three days left in the cooling-off pact.

In three days, I would take my son and leave this place for good, back behind Castellano walls where no Moretti soldier could follow.

Just as I lowered my head to book the flights.

My phone buzzed.

A direct message from Gianna.

I opened it. A freshly taken photo.

And the backdrop in that photo was, unmistakably, the very studio we'd just left.

In the picture.

Gianna wore a long white dress, her smile soft and gentle.

Lorenzo in a crisp suit, Nico held in his arms.

The three of them leaning together.

Like a real family of three.

Beneath it, a single line:

【Isn't it just a family portrait?】

【Whenever I want, we can be a family anytime.】

I stared at that line for a few seconds.

And then I laughed.

If this had been before.

I would have called Lorenzo right away to demand answers.

To ask why he couldn't keep the promises he made to his own son.

To ask why he always let someone else take the place that belonged to us.

But now.

I didn't even have the strength to be angry.

I closed the chat.

My thumb found the bare finger where my ring used to sit, and turned a band that wasn't there anymore.

And went ahead and booked the flights to Los Angeles three days out, into Castellano territory.

When the payment-confirmed notice popped up.

The door opened downstairs.

Before long.

Lorenzo walked into the living room, and the soldier at the entrance straightened and went silent the way men always did when the Don crossed his own threshold.

And in his hand, of all things, was a box of durian mille-crêpe cake.

My son and I both froze.

Neither of us said a word.

Because everyone under the Moretti roof knew.

Lorenzo hated durian.

He'd even frown at the smell of it.

My son used to love it.

But because he was afraid of upsetting his father, every birthday he'd choose plain dark chocolate instead.

He never once dared say the word durian.

Yet today.

This man who held an entire syndicate in his fist, whose name made other Families lower their voices.

Had actually gone and bought a durian mille-crêpe himself.

Absurd, like some kind of joke.

Lorenzo stepped closer.

His gaze fell on the suitcases spread open in the middle of the living room.

His face darkened all at once.

"Why are you packing so much?"

He set the cake down and asked, frowning.

My expression stayed calm.

"I want to take our son away for a while, to clear our heads."

When he heard that.

He visibly let out a breath.

Like a stone that had been hanging over his heart had finally dropped.

"That's good too."

"There really has been a lot going on lately."

As he spoke, he undid his cuff links and crouched down to my son's eye level.

The hard lines of his face softened, rare for him.

There was even a clumsy sort of eagerness to please.

"Papa bought you a cake today."

"Do you want to have some together?"