CHAPTER 05

The Moretti mansion’s dining room was a great expanse of dark mahogany and crystal chandeliers, each element painstakingly chosen to highlight wealth and authority. Feeling little and out of place among the austere grandeur, Catalina sat at one end of the long dinner table.

Luca, across from her, his small shape minuscule against the high-backed chair. His large, inquisitive eyes brimmed with a blend of innocence and a sort of wisdom gleaned from only surviving suffering.

Matteo Moretti ruled over the table like a monarch. Watching over his son, he was a solemn, authoritative presence with sharp lines of jaw set in a grimace. Quietly and quickly, servants laid out dishes of precisely cooked food.

But even with the lovely dinner in front of her, Catalina lost her appetite. The room had obvious, stifling tension.

Catalina attempted to concentrate on Luca and gave him a little, real grin. In this dark, perilous universe she had been dragged into, he was the sole lighthouse. Her heart contracted as he noticed her smile and grinned back—a flash of warmth. She was reminded so much of the small brother she had always wanted but never had.

They started dinner, the silence broken by the clinking of spoons. Catalina watched Luca deftly chop his food, his small hands calm and deliberate. Now and then, he would glance at his father as if looking for approval, and Matteo would nod in a way that seemed almost delicate. It was a rare display of compassion in a guy who normally exuded icy power.

Though she hardly tasted it, Catalina took a timid mouthful of her dish, and the flavors were rich and wonderful. Her head spun with ideas, worries, and the unsaid weight of what she had to go through.

Luca’s little voice pierced the stillness just as she felt it might linger indefinitely.

“Catalina,” he replied, his voice inquisitive but wary, “can I ask you something?”

Catalina put her fork down, totally focused on him. “Luca. Anything.”

He stopped, looking at his father as though he needed permission. Matteo’s face was unreadable, but he let his kid continue to talk. Luca shifted his eye back to Catalina and peered at her with eyes full of far more questions than a little kid ought to be exposed to.

He said gently, “Do you have a mama?”

Though his words were kind, they hit Catalina like a physical blow. Her breath seized and her heart hurt in a way she hadn’t trained for. Warm, loving memories corrupted by the grief of her absence flooded back.

Her mother. Catalina forced herself to grin through the discomfort as her throat clenched.

“I did,” she answered, her voice shaking even with her efforts. “She was just the most amazing lady. She always understood how to give me security.”

Luca gazed down at his plate, his softened eyes filled with knowledge. Whispering as though terrified to hear the response, “Where is she now?”

The smile of Catalina faltered. She inhaled shakily, ready to explain, then abruptly—

BAM

The impact of Matteo’s fist was so strong that the plates shook, and Catalina’s heart skipped into her throat. It came down on the table.

The sound broke the brittle peace in the room with startling sharpness. Catalina stopped; her words died on her lips, and her wide eyes flicked to Matteo.

His dark eyes flamed with a fury that made the air feel oppressive, his face was a maelstrom of barely restrained wrath, his mouth clenched. The silence that followed was dense and packed with an intensity Catalina’s hands shook with.

Matteo snarled, his voice a low, menacing rumble.

“Enough.”

He ignored Catalina; his eye was set some distance away as if he were engaged in internal warfare.

“There is no more mother talk.”

His command had perfect weight, and Catalina briefly stopped breathing. She felt as though she had been jerked to the brink of a precipice and was staring down an abyss of Matteo’s sadness and wrath. Terrified of what may happen if she moved or spoke, she avoided both.

But Luca glanced at his father with wide, inquisitive eyes, innocent and ignorant of the gloom whirling around them.

The kid had a genuine tiny voice.

“Papa,” he replied, his tone soft yet inquisitive, “where’s my mama? Why isn’t she here?”

The question loomed large, weighty and terrible. Matteo’s whole body stiffened, and for a second, Catalina sensed something break in his expression—a flash of unvarnished suffering he rapidly hid.

His jaw twisted as though he was struggling to keep himself together; his hands tightened into fists at his sides.

Her heart broke for father and son as Catalina’s chest contracted. She could see Matteo’s rage as a shield, a wall meant to stifle the intolerable loss. And she could see the bewilderment and anguish in Luca’s eyes, a lad too small to grasp the complexity of loss and desertion.

Matteo inhaled slowly and deliberately; his voice came out strained and harsh.

“Your mother,” he added, each syllable sounding as though it were wrenched from somewhere deep and terrible, “isn’t coming back.”

The lower lip of Luca shook, and tears filled his black eyes. He tightened his plush bear, the innocence of his anguish slicing into Catalina like a razor.

“But why,” he said in a whisper, “Was she not loving me enough to stay?”

Though Catalina felt her own tears stinging at her eyes, she pushed herself to remain silent, to not meddle. This moment was a wound too great for her to reach.

Matteo’s face twisted with grief, but he swiftly covered it; his walls were up once more.

“That’s enough, Luca,” Matteo remarked, his voice firm and stern. His shoulders tight with a grief he refused to convey, he turned away from them.

“Finish your meal.”

Luca sniffled, his small body shaking as he tried to be brave, but his eyes clearly hurt.

Catalina could take no more. Reaching across the table, she tried to provide some solace with a quiet and steady voice.

“Luca,” she whispered softly, catching his eye. “Missing the ones we love is natural. It does not imply they loved us less back.”

Luca stared at her, his tears poised to pour, and she briefly considered he could collapse. Still, he nodded slowly as if searching for power in her words.

Matteo stayed with his back to them, but his shoulders seemed to tighten even more as though Catalina’s comments had pierced his defenses.

The rest of the dinner passed in a tense, delicate stillness; Matteo departed the room without saying another word, his presence a shadow that stayed even long after he was gone.

Her heart weighed the secrets and grief that connected them all together as Catalina sat with Luca until he was ready to be returned to his room.

She knew one thing for sure as she watched Luca vanish down the hall: the Moretti family suffered more than only the bullet in Luca’s brain. She had also somehow joined their tragedy, one she wasn’t sure she could withstand.