A second chance at true love

Chapter 1 - Hate

.Lucio.

.3 years ago.

Hate.

Hate and relief.

That’s what I feel when I see her coffin sink into the ground. I can’t help but be relieved.

Finally, this charade is over and I don’t have to pretend anymore.

I put my arm around my daughter Sofia. The last few months with her mother have not been easy for her. She’s holding herself up, but I know she’s in pain, she’s grieving.

The question is, is she grieving because she lost her mother? Does she grieve for the life her mother lived? Is she sad because the last words she spoke to her mother were out of anger and she now never has a chance to make amends, not really? Whatever it is, I have to be there for my daughter.

Sofia leans against me and I hear her sniff softly.

I kiss her head. “It’s okay sweetie, you can be sad,” I tell her. She pulls wildly from my grip and looks up at me furiously. She shakes her head and walks away. I want to go after her, but Valentina, my sister puts her hand on my arm.

“I’ll go.”

I nod to her and she runs after Sofia. I feel a hand on my shoulder and am relieved when I see my older brother Enrico standing there. His face is as hard as my father’s, probably as hard as mine.

“Dad.” I hear Donato whisper. He’s on my other side. Cautiously, I look his way, afraid he doesn’t mean me, afraid he’ll call someone else his father.

My heart breaks for him when I see that he is looking at me. I see the tears in his eyes. The boy who is left with so many questions. I put my arm around him and he grabs me tightly and starts crying. His little brother Gino follows but keeps more distance from me.

My heart breaks for him too, but more for myself when I see my brother Paulo lifting him on his arm and Gino laying his head on his shoulder.

That little boy who ran into my bedroom a month ago because there was a monster under his bed. That same little boy who asked me if I would always stay with him, just like Barry Badger, from the story we read together. The boy is far too young to understand everything that is happening around him and to ask a single question about it. My heart breaks for both guys who made a choice that they might regret later, whatever choice it was.

I hold Donato tighter. So tight, because I can’t hold Gino. The boy I cared for, for over nine years as if he were my own child. I didn’t know any better than he was my son. Until nine months ago.

We turn around and everyone walks past us to offer our condolences.

First Paulo, then me.

People who have known Zita, who don’t know everything, come first. It only becomes extremely painful when the Ferrantes come to us.

Vivian is struggling, she wants to offer Paulo condolences but Riccardo, her husband quickly pushes her forward to me, and he completely ignores Paulo. His brothers follow his example. The dichotomy in our family is so obvious.

Luca Ferrante does hug Paulo. I didn’t expect anything else from him. The two do the best business together in New York, they have sworn allegiance to each other. Something vital in their world. Luca can’t take sides. Maybe I don’t want him to take sides either, secretly afraid that he will choose Paulo and not me. He stands in front of me grabs my neck and kisses my forehead. “I’m sorry,” he whispers.

I nod. This is enough for me. That’s all he needs to say.

My father wants to walk to Paulo, but now it’s Paulo who shakes his head and turns away from him. The two have had a huge fight. Similar to mine and Paulo’s. But what has been done has been done. Paulo made it very clear to our father that he no longer sees our father as his father.

My father distances himself from him and steps closer to me.

When everyone is gone, Paulo takes the shovel and scoops the earth over the coffin first and holds the shovel for me to take.

I shake my head.

“Don’t do this Lucio, you always said you loved her,” he replies.

“That’s right. Loved. Past tense,” I answer him.

Love that was never reciprocated. Was there love? Did I love her? I loved the idea of her giving me three beautiful children.

Which is also a lie. I shake my head again.

He tosses the shovel aside and shakes his head. “My plane is leaving tonight, are you sure you want to stay here Donato?” he asks.

Donato lets go of me and looks at Paulo. He then looks at me.

“You have to do what you want. I love you no matter what choice you make,” I tell him.

As much as it would hurt me if he went with Paulo now, no matter how much I hated it and how furious it would make me. My heart would break, but that’s not for his shoulders to bear.

He looks at Paulo again. It doesn’t mean anything, I tell myself.

“I’m staying here. My choice is made,” he replies. Paulo opens his arm for him and Donato gives him a quick hug. When he’s back with me, I look at Gino.

Paulo puts him on the ground. “Do you want to say goodbye to Lucio?” he asks.

Gone is the title Dad. Gone is the long-standing bond we’ve built together. The boy who lay on my bare chest a few hours after he was born is no longer there. He nods and walks over to me. I squat and open my arms. For the first time today, I feel the tears sting, not for the loss of Zita, but for the loss of a child that I always thought was mine. When I let go of him, he runs back to Paulo who lifts him again. For everyone in the family to see what happens.

“Sofia is inside,” I shout. Gino looks back at us. Paulo keeps walking.

“Do we have to stay a long time?” asks Donato. I look up at him and stand up. “No, do you want to go home?” I ask him and he nods. “Come on then we’ll go find Sofia.”

“Lucio.” I hear my mother’s sharp voice. I can’t help but blame her for all of this.

She is the instigator of all this. The reason Paulo is not my brother but my half-brother/cousin.. the reason for my marriage to Zita. The reason Paulo and Zita stayed together. As she put it, “If Zita hadn’t gotten sick, you would never have known. Things went well between your father and me for a long time too.”

I was dumbfounded. What mother says that? What mother takes sides so much with her children? My marriage was a lie, my life was a mess, my wife f****d my f*cking brother! What mother doesn’t put an arm around her son to comfort him?

My mother.

“Leonora.” My father steps in between me and my mother. “Step aside Vito, I’m his mother.”

“And Paulo’s too, I would look him up, your husband is waiting for you. Your car will leave any minute now,” I snap at her before I walk off.

I hear her say more, but I don’t want to listen. I turn further away from her and walk away from her with Donato at my side.

Enrico stays behind with my father and next to me my younger brother Valerio walks with his wife and my sister’s husband, Vincenzo walks next to me on the other side.

“Tina says they’re sitting on a bench outside the gate,” he tells me.

“We’ll take care of it inside,” answers Valerio, and with a slap on my shoulder they walk in a different direction.

“Sorry Daddy!” Sofia comes running and flies into my arms.

“Shhh.” I grab her as best I can with Donato in my other arm.

“I couldn’t hear or see it anymore.”

“It’s okay sweetie,” I tell her. “It’s going to be okay again.”

I sincerely hope I’m not lying. That the three of us can be okay again. That it will one day become normal between Gino and me. That one day I can be at peace with everything that has happened.

What has been done to me. Maybe one day I won’t feel that it was done to me, but that it was a choice of mine. But for now, I’m angry.

~

Nine months ago, a bomb exploded between me and Zita. All because our daughter had heard her mother on the phone. In which she literally told the other person that she couldn’t love me, that she didn’t even think we were friends.

And if that wasn’t enough, the next day I had to hear from my brother that he’s been f*****g my wife for years when I’m not around.

Every trip Zita took to New York because she missed her mother and sisters was not for her mother and sisters, but to be with Paulo. My f*cking brother! Or half/cousin/brother.

And the moment you think wow, that’s... F*ked up... Imagine what my face looked like when she shoved the paternity test papers at me. It was stated that DNA research has shown that both my sons Donato and Gino are not mine but hers and Paulo's.

Almost immediately after that came the divorce papers and the announcement that she would be returning to New York with Paulo in two days. She left Gino and Donato with me for a while, until I got the papers that I had to appear in court. She wanted all three children, one hundred percent with her in New York. She had thought that she wanted to enjoy her love and the children in her last months. She didn’t really care that she destroyed, not only my life but also the lives of all three of our children.

She told the judge “I’m a dying mother, I deserve to die with the people I love most.”

My family was a great support, especially Christina, the wife of my brother Enrico, and Valentina was there a lot for Sofia. She had to deal with a bitter pill. Because her mother did fight for her, but Paulo just shrugged. He wanted his sons. Because one of the two would take his place. His place as head of the family.

Before we moved to Cliffs together, fourteen or almost fifteen years ago, we were all active in the Mafia. Enrico the head of our family.

Vincenzo the head of the Bellucci family and Riccardo the head of the Ferrantes.

Vincenzo fell for my sister Valentina, who was raised by the Ferrantes. That made us work together again instead of against each other. Vincenzo wanted to quit, and Valentina didn’t want him to do this kind of work, but once in, it’s never out. It wasn’t until Riccardo met his wife, the very young Vivian, that there was a chance for all of us to stop the business. We would all stop at once. My brother Enrico wanted to quit too, so with all three families, we decided to quit and leave.

Paulo didn’t want to stop. He wanted to continue, he wanted to expand more, so logically, he took over from Enrico and we left.

Now that Paulo is still there, in New York, he wants his sons to take over.

The children I promised when they came into the world that I would never give that world to them. I promised I would do anything to protect them from evil, from that world. Those same children were questioned by different agencies and had to talk to child support to tell them what they wanted, and who they wanted to live with.

Their father or their uncle Lucio.

Once in court, they made the decision. Gino was too young, nine, he stayed with his mother and therefore also with Paulo, his father. Sofia and Donato were old enough, so they had to choose. They both went to Zita and Paulo. Sofia wanted to know what it was like, she still had things to talk through with her mother, so I let her go. Donato hesitated, but he didn’t want to let Sofia go alone, so he went too. After a week there Sofia wanted to go back to me, and Donato followed two months later.