Page 15 of Redemption
She presses a kiss to the top of my head as her tears soak through my hair. “Yes, my son. I am here, and I am real. And now, you come home with us, where you belong. It is time.”
Slowly, I raise my head and meet her gaze. The last thing I would ever want to do is break my mother’s heart, especially when I just met her.
“I can’t leave right this moment. I have obligations. I have … I have much to attend to here before I can go.”
“You have people trying to kill you, brother. Someone tried to kill me, believing I was you,” my brother reminds me. “This place is not safe for you anymore. You cannot safely stay here for long now. It is time to go.”
Unused to people telling me what I can and cannot do, I check my ego as it tries to rise. “I know why you say that, and you’re undoubtedly right, but even if I wanted to leave right now, I have a wife, a daughter, businesses …” I trail off, thinking of what I have to do tomorrow—bury my best friend and the only brother I knew before now.
“But they will come with us,” my mother says, her tone insistent. “Your family is our family. Your daughter is my granddaughter. She is the sole heir to the Giordano empire. Marco has no children and will not. We believed our family line would die with Marco, but your daughter gives us new hope. She has a fortune at her fingertips. Her future is assured in ways you cannot yet understand. Whatever you have, we have more, my son. God has blessed us abundantly, and it is for you and your family. Islands. The estate and farms. A mountain home. Yachts. A fleet of cars and planes and more. Gold. Jewels. The best of everything. We have it all. It is your daughter’s legacy. She must not be denied her heritage.”
The enormity of what she’s saying isn’t lost on me, but that doesn’t change what I have to do tomorrow.
“We will come. I promise you, we will come. But not today. Tomorrow, I must lay to rest a man who gave his life while protecting my daughter. I have to honor his memory first. And then my wife. She has a business too. A family of her own. Our life isn’t so simple to leave behind.”
“But your empire is crumbling, brother. You know it, and I know it.”
The truth in Marco’s words brings me back to this morning, when I was falling apart on the rug in my library.
My brother isn’t wrong. In fact, he’s exactly right.
“Be that as it may, I can’t just walk away. I have things I must do. Obligations to take care of. I can’t just run. That’s not who I am, and that’s not the man I’ll ever be.”
“Then, when?” my mother asks. “When will you come? I will not take no for an answer. You may not know me well yet, my son, but I am certain there is much of me within you. You are my blood. And I never give up. Never.”
My face stretches with a smile that I didn’t expect to possess me. “I have no doubt you are a fearsome creature in your own right. After all, you’re my mother, and I’m not a man like any other. But you have to let me do this my way. I have to speak to my wife. We’re a team. She’s my better half in every way she could possibly be. You’ll love her. It’s impossible not to.”
My mother’s face softens—perhaps she realizes she’s won even if the victory is not immediate.
“You will not take long to settle your obligations. We have much time to make up for, and you have much waiting for you at home. More than you could ever dream. I will give you one week, my son. And then I will come to your home, no matter how dangerous Marco says it would be for me to do so.”
Leave it to my mother to give me an ultimatum. I should have expected no less.
Perhaps a quick vacation to Italy is exactly what our family needs to recover from the shock and horror we’ve all experienced this week.
With a nod, I reach out and take her hand. Once more, I bring it to my lips, pressing a kiss to the back. “A week it is. After all, how could I disappoint my mother?”
Chapter Eight
Keira
“It’s okay. It’s just me.”
I wake with a jerk of my head at the sound of Lachlan’s voice. I blink my eyes, but my vision is still fuzzy.
“I wasn’t going to fall asleep. I was waiting up,” I murmur through a yawn as his hand cups the side of my head. I burrow into the familiar scent and touch instinctively, thankful beyond anything that my husband is beside me once more.
“You should’ve slept soundly, like Rory.”
I track his gaze to our daughter as she snuggles between the pillow and my body.
“She needed it more than I did,” I say through another yawn.
“Right. I buy that completely,” my husband replies with a wry tone.
With another blink to clear my vision, I study the hard planes and sharp angles of his face that I love so dearly, gratitude settling in my soul at his safe return. It’s the same feeling I have every time he comes back to me. It’s something I never take for granted with his business—especially with how our life has been unfolding recently.
That’s when it hits me. Lachlan looks different.
