Chapter 7
Clara had heard more than she first admitted.
Not because she lied.
Because she was afraid the rest would hurt Milo.
That told me which child in the room understood protection best.
We sat together in the library.
Milo asleep on the sofa with his head against her thigh.
“What else?”
Clara stroked his hair.
“Aunt Teresa said Blackthorne makes boys stop crying.”
My chest tightened.
“And?”
“She said Milo would stop asking about Mom.”
Elena.
Milo and Clara’s mother.
My wife.
Dead ten months.
There it was.
The deepest cruelty.
Milo still asked for her.
Every night sometimes.
Teresa called grief weakness.
Lucia called it attachment.
Blackthorne would cure both.
I stared at my sleeping son.
“You knew?”
Clara nodded.
“She said I should stop talking about Mom around him.”
“Did you?”
“No.”
Good.
“What did you do?”
“I tell him stories.”
My eyes burned.
“What stories?”
“Mom burning pancakes.”
I almost laughed.
“She did.”
“Mom getting mad at the squirrel.”
“That squirrel deserved it.”
Clara smiled faintly.
Then became serious.
“Aunt Teresa said if Milo forgot Mom faster, he’d be better.”
I looked away.
Adults often call forgetting healing when memory inconveniences them.
Elena had died after a short illness.
The house still carried her.
Perfume in one drawer.
Photographs.
Children’s stories.
A scarf Clara wore sometimes.
I had not removed them.
Apparently my mother viewed that as a strategic failure.
Clara whispered:
“Will they make me stop too?”
I turned back.
“No.”
“You promise?”
“Yes.”
“Even when I’m old?”
“Yes.”
She nodded.
Then:
“Grandma says Mom made you soft too.”
I almost smiled.
“She did.”
Clara stared.
“Bad?”
“No.”
I looked at Milo.
“She made me better at knowing what matters.”
That answer felt dangerous in a Mafia family.
Good.
Maybe danger was overdue.
Elena had not weakened me.
She had given me things worth protecting that were not the organization.
Lucia feared exactly that.
Because men with only one source of identity are easier for institutions to own.
Milo loved his mother.
His sister.
Me.
Toys.
Pancakes.
A ridiculous stuffed fox.
Blackthorne’s job was to narrow that world.
May you like
Make family power the central sun.
I finally understood why I hated the place before I remembered it.
