Chapter 13
Lucia was born healthy.
Seven pounds.
Furious lungs.
Elena called her dramatic.
I blamed her mother.
She blamed Caradonna blood.
Fair.
The first time I held my daughter, every old argument about succession became obscene.
She was barely opening her eyes.
Men had already spent months discussing what she might inherit.
No.
She inherited a blanket.
A mother.
A father trying not to repeat mistakes.
That was enough.
My father’s letter stayed framed?
No.
Too theatrical.
Elena kept it in a drawer.
Sometimes I read it.
Mostly not.
Dead men should not run living houses.
After Lucia’s birth, Silvio sent one final message.
Your father would never have allowed Caradonna to become this soft.
I deleted it.
Then reconsidered.
Not because I wanted the insult.
Because I wanted to remember the pattern.
I printed one line from my father’s actual letter instead:
We choose our loyalties.
That stayed in my desk.
Not on a wall.
No text on screen.
Again, private joke.
Rafe had stopped asking why I smiled at nothing.
Lucia met Victoria once by accident two years later.
Public charity dinner.
Victoria froze.
Elena did not.
She held Lucia calmly.
Victoria said:
“She’s beautiful.”
Elena answered:
“I know.”
No cruelty.
No warmth.
Truth.
May you like
They moved on.
Sometimes the most mature ending is refusing to make every encounter into a scene.
