Total pages in book: 51
Estimated words: 48061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 48061 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 240(@200wpm)___ 192(@250wpm)___ 160(@300wpm)
Benny has stayed behind to tie up loose ends as he would say. I didn’t thank him, didn’t say a word. I’ll deal with that tomorrow. Tonight, I’m taking my son home and letting my mom know he’s safe. I’ll make him dinner, give him a bath, and he can fall asleep on my lap. I’ll hold him all night, reminding myself he’s home.
I still have Mrs. Cappelli’s rosary clutching in my hand when I get to my mom’s. She comes out and embraces us both. Liam complains that we are smushing him and we laugh through our tears.
Once Liam is asleep, I try to tell my mom briefly what happened.
“It doesn’t matter how he did it,” she says simply. “When I called him, I wanted my grandson back. I don’t care if he won a game of rock paper scissors or shot up city hall.”
I nod because I feel the same way. I can act as self-righteous as I want until it comes to the safety of my child. Then any integrity and lawfulness goes out the window and I don’t care if they take prisoners.
“This is what I was scared of all along. It was why I took off. Because I knew a child would never be safe in this life. And everything I put you through and everything you missed out on and Benny never even knowing about Liam, all of it was for nothing. I thought I could control everything, keep him safe that way. But we were always vulnerable, we were in danger and I was just pretending we weren’t.”
“Your son was walking around all this time with that face and you were convinced it was a big secret,” my mom says, “but you know how stubborn you are.”
“Yeah,” I say miserably. “I’m sorry. Tomorrow I’m going to talk to Benny. Or listen to him yell at me and tell me what a horrible person I am.”
“It’s time to grow up, baby. You’ve got to face the music.”
26
BENNY
The first time I see my son, it’s in a stranger’s apartment. A glimpse of his face, big dark eyes, messy dark hair, round cheeks. He streaks past me into Daisy’s arms. When he barrels into her, she scoops him up, never letting go of him.
I register that he is whole and safe. I have to turn my attention to the next step, eliminating the threat. Delivering the message personally that anyone who lays a finger on my family will pay in blood. I don’t have the luxury of sitting beside my own child and looking him over, making sure he is okay. I have to mete out justice as brutal as it is instant. I tap Gino to drive them home.
I help Daisy to her feet as she struggles under his weight, carries him herself. His legs are long, dangling at her sides for a second before he wraps them around her and clings like a baby koala. I touch her hair and she leaves, never even looking away from him for an instant.
She was scared out of her right mind tonight. That may explain why she wouldn’t let go of me, held onto my hand and leaned on me and looked to me for cues as to what to do, whether to sit or stand, accept tea or not. Like I was her whole world. When, in fact, her whole world is that little boy she’s been raising in secret.
This whole damn time, I’ve had a son and never knew. It’s eating me up even as I push it back into a vault so I can deal with Grigo Cappelli for the last time.
I nod to his mother and say I’ll wait outside. I give them fifteen minutes. Then I knock on the door. She sends him out, eyes red but her face resigned. He follows me to his car and hands me the keys without a word. I thought he’d be obnoxious and loud, threaten and beg and try to bargain. He’s silent. I’d say it’s unnerving but the whole damn day has been unnerving.
We go for a drive to one of my warehouses. I do what I have to do, and the cleanup crew is there to take over. By the time I take a shower at my place it feels like I’ve aged twenty years since this morning.
Drained and miserable, I know I won’t sleep. I work out, then flip open my laptop and search. I get on the school’s web site, look at recent photos. There he is, holding up a paper with big lopsided numbers written in little boxes, row after row of them, along with a couple other kids. “Great job Lily Wong, Jaxon Holloway, and Liam Cooper who wrote their numbers to 100 today!” the caption says.
He's in kindergarten. He can already count and everything—I missed all that. Crawling, walking, first tooth, first everything. It’s a punch to the gut. I pick up my phone to call Daisy, but I have a message from her.