Chapter 411 413

Chapter 411 413
The silence stretches out a little, so I reach for my drink and take a sip. “Thank you for keeping your word,” I say to him. “The territory disputes are no longer in question.”

He inclines his head. “I’m a man of my word. I’m also a man who’s lost his taste for war. As I told you in our first phone call months ago, I do not wish to challenge the Clan. My only quarrel was when I thought my granddaughter’s interests were better served with the Greeks.”

“Your granddaughter’s interests?” she repeats scornfully. “You’ll forgive me for asking why you even cared. It wasn’t as though you made any attempt to be in my life those first twenty-five years.”

Mattias’s face slackens slightly.

I resist the urge to jump into the conversation. This is about Renata. I don’t want to make it about me.

“Renata, I know it might be hard for you to believe, but up until a year ago, I didn’t know you were still alive.” Renata frowns, but Mattias continues. “Drago made sure your existence was buried. He spread stories to my men confirming that you died as a five-year-old in the same attack as your father. It wasn’t until he had made the deal with Rokiades and arranged your marriage to him that I was made aware that you were still alive.”

“I find that hard to believe.”

He nods, accepting that. “As did I. Many people thought of your brother as a fool. And in many ways, he was. But he could also be strategic. He knew you were valuable; he knew he could use you when the time was right. He didn’t want to risk losing you to a more competent guardian. When he finally approached me, he told me that you had freely and willingly agreed to the marriage. He also told me that the O’Sullivan Clan posed a direct threat to you. Which was why I chose to ally with him in the first place.”

His story explains a lot. I have no reason to doubt it. He made the best choice he could for his family, or so he believed at the time. I can’t fault him for that.

“Okay,” Renata sighs. “Okay, that makes sense. But what doesn’t make sense to me is what I know of my mother. I lived all my life believing she was some random nobody who didn’t really care about me—only to find out that she was a very important somebody who still didn’t really care about me.”

The pain in her voice is evident. I reach out and take her hand.

Mariani’s eyes follow the gesture. “She did care, Renata,” he protests.

But I sense the lie immediately.

Apparently, so does Renata. “Please,” she says. “If you want a relationship with me, with your great-grandchild, I need you to be honest.”

The conflict rages across his face for a moment, and then he comes to a decision. I notice the way he squares his shoulders like he’s walking into a cave fight. “The truth is hard to hear sometimes, Renata.”

“I don’t care. I need to know.”

“Very well,” he says, with a short nod. First, he takes a sip of his whiskey. “The truth is Isabella was a complicated young woman. She was beautiful, wild, spirited, opinionated. She resented the limitations of her life. She resented the security that followed her everywhere on my orders. She resented that she could not simply take charge of her fate, like a man in her position would be able to do.”

“I sympathize with that,” Renata says icily.

“As a teenager, she was rebellious and reckless. As a young woman, those traits only became heightened. She suffered from depression and she could be manic at times.”

I glance at Renata, noticing the worried lines forming across her forehead. I move a little closer to her and she leans against my chest.

“She started shaking off her guards to visit mafia bars. That was where she met your father. He was the epitome of what she detested. A man who thought he could simply take what he wanted. My sources tell me that she caught his interest, but her status as my daughter protected her. Somewhat, at least. However, Isabella was always combative. She wanted to assert her dominance, prove she was the equal of the most powerful man in the room. It… it didn’t end well.”

Renata winces and stiffens. I tighten my grip on her hand.

Mariani sighs. “Sometimes, confidence can be a curse. I don’t know precisely what happened. What I do know is that almost a year after she Giorgio took her, she returned. She told me that she had become pregnant and he had given her a choice.”

Renata sits up a little. I want to stop this story. I want to convince her that not knowing is better. But I know I don’t have the right to sway her in either direction.

This is her choice to make.

“Stay with him and raise the child,” Mattias explains, “or say goodbye to her newborn and gain the freedom she always sought.”

Renata’s shoulders sage for a moment. Then she nods. “She put herself first.”

“She wasn’t capable of loving you at the time, Renata,” Mariani says, in a weak voice. “She was too broken. The year she spent with Lombardi changed her.”

“So then why did she agree to marry him?” Renata demands.

“That was… my doing,” he says.

And I finally understand the reason behind his sagging shoulders, his defeated frame. He’s a man burdened with regret. He pushed his daughter to her death, in a twisted way.

“I convinced her over the years to consider Lombardi’s offer of marriage,” he continues. “…For your sake. I was convinced that if she saw you again, she’d decide she wanted to be a mother.”

Renata glances at me, searching for comfort. I squeeze her shoulders, drawing her closer to me.

“It was the greatest mistake of my life,” Mariani acknowledges.

Renata looks down for a moment. With her free hand, she cradles her swollen belly. “Thank you for telling me all this.”

“I wish it were a better story.”

“I wasn’t looking for a story,” Renata replies with a strength I suspect she’s inherited from her mother. “I was looking for the truth.”

Mattias gives her a nod and a smile that’s on the cusp of being content.