Page 62 of Redemption
My father, who is not a young man anymore, strides up the stairs the same way he must have when he was four decades younger. There’s a spring in his step I have not seen since I was a boy. The urgency of his gait as he rushes without running is more than I anticipated.
Because you have no idea what he’s feeling right now, I remind myself. Or what the last forty-plus years have been like for him.
And if I’m being honest, I do not want to know the pain he has felt. I would not want to live with the agony he has endured, both self-inflicted and otherwise.
I don’t think he notices a single leaf, petal, or sculpture on the trek up to the main gardens that lead to the villa. But the moment he sees Lachlan and our mother, his stride falters, and he falls back a half step and freezes.
For long moments, nobody but the child in Lachlan’s arms moves. Finally, Father looks to me and then back to Lachlan. Without a word, he sinks to his knees on the grass, and his fists clutch at the blades.
As if in slow motion, Lachlan crouches down and lowers Aurora to her feet. Still holding each of her small hands, he walks slowly toward our father’s kneeling form while she takes one wobbling step after another.
Finally, he speaks, breaking the silence that encapsulates us all. “This is your grandfather, Rory. Would you like to meet him?”
A rough breath escapes our father, and I am moved to tears as he opens his arms to the tiny little girl in welcome.
Chapter Thirty-One
Lachlan
Aurora stumbles into the older man’s open arms, and I pray I haven’t miscalculated. I pray that my father can’t resist the sweetness of my little girl—because I’d hate to have to kill him right here and have a pool of blood spoil our perfect family moment.
When he closes his arms around her and tears pour down a face that looks like mine will look in a few decades, I know that I’m not going to have to kill anyone today.
“My granddaughter,” he whispers through an onslaught of tears. “I have a granddaughter.”
“It is a miracle,” my mother says quietly from beside me.
I would hazard to guess that there’s not a single dry eye on the entire island right now. Keira takes three steps forward and kneels in the grass.
“She might get your suit a little slobbery. I’m sorry about that. She’s teething.”
My father, a man who could no more deny I am his son than I could deny he is my sire, looks at my wife for the first time.
“She is beautiful. You are beautiful.” He looks up at me, eyes shining with tears. “And my son. My Luca. You have come back to us. This day … this day …” He switches to Italian, and whatever he says has my mother sobbing and my brother squatting down and reaching out to wrap an arm around the older man’s shoulders.
We all draw nearer as he sobs into Aurora’s dark curls. She squirms away, reaching for her mother, and he releases her gracefully.
“My son,” he says as he stares longingly at me and then looks to Marco. “My sons.”
He tips forward, his forehead touching the grass, and we all wait in silence while he has his moment. After all, we’ve each had ours already. But his emotional state draws forth a poignance from me that I’ve never before felt.
Tears roughen my throat, and I’m grateful I don’t have to speak. I lower onto the grass beside Keira and reach for Aurora. She plops onto her rear in between us and yanks grass from the lawn.
“Ma-ma,” she says as she sprinkles her treasures over her feet.
“Brilliant girl. A Giordano through and through,” my mother says as she sinks beside me with a hand on my shoulder. “Beautiful and brilliant.”
My father lifts his head from the grass and stares at each of us with bewilderment on his face.
“I did not know. I did not know. He told me you were dead. If I had known, I would never have stopped searching. I would never have given up hope. But he told me you were dead. He swore it on his life and his family’s life. I believed him. He lied to me, and I believed him. I believed his lie, and it cost me everything.”
I have no idea who my father is talking about, but the only person who makes sense is someone involved in the kidnapping all those years ago. Marco didn’t mention they ever knew who did it, and the media that Keira searched hadn’t reported any leads.
But the old man—my old man—clearly knew more than the papers.
Someone had told him I was dead. Someone had convinced him that it was the truth. And it changed everything.
I think of the foster homes that were my first memories and then the streets that became my world. Cold and merciless. The exact environment that it would take to make me the man I became. A man strong enough to survive anything. Strong enough to seize an empire. Strong enough to overcome every obstacle and challenge.
