Chapter 8 - The Weight of Regret
|
The morning sun broke through the storm clouds, casting golden shafts of light across the expansive library of the Moretti estate.
Nancy stood by the floor-to-ceiling French windows, a warm mug of chamomile tea cradled between her palms.
In the courtyard below, through the leaded glass, she watched Leland running across the manicured grass.
Two trusted guards stood at a respectful distance, smiling as the boy chased an errant yellow leaf that danced in the autumn breeze.
Hearing the heavy oak doors open behind her, Nancy turned around.
Anias entered the library, the scent of autumn air and ozone clinging to his overcoat.
He looked weary, his jaw dark with heavy stubble, but there was a fierce, protective clarity in his eyes that she had not seen since they were young lovers on the Cape Cod shore.
He walked over to the mahogany desk, laid his leather gloves on the blotter, and looked across the room at her.
“It was Mateo,” Anias stated simply, his voice cracking with the strain of suppressed emotion.
“I interrogated Dr. Vance an hour ago.”
“Mateo paid him fifty thousand dollars to forge the papers and threatened his family.”
“He fabricated the entire story to convince me that you had terminated our child out of spite, and to convince you that I had ordered your execution.”
Nancy closed her eyes, the porcelain mug trembling in her grasp until she had to set it down on a nearby side table.
A heavy sob tore through her lips, years of self-imposed exile and terror finally shattering like brittle glass.
“Why, Anias?” she wept, pressing her hands against her face.
“Why would he do that to us?”
“Because without an heir, the Moretti family line would have passed directly to him upon my death,” Anias explained, his voice thick with raw hatred for his own blood.
“And because he knew you were the only thing in this world that could make me put down my gun.”
Anias crossed the room with slow, deliberate steps until he stood directly before her.
He did not reach out to touch her, respecting the invisible wall that five years of tragedy had built between them.
Instead, the feared don of Boston slowly dropped to both knees before his ex-wife.
Nancy gasped, taking an involuntary step back, but her back met the cold glass of the window frame.
“Anias, what are you doing?” she whispered, staring down at him in shock.
Anias looked up at her, tears glistening freely in his dark gray eyes, completely stripped of pride, power, and authority.
“I am asking you to forgive a blind, arrogant fool,” Anias said, his voice breaking under the crushing weight of his confession.
“I should have torn the city apart looking for you five years ago.”
“I should have known in my soul that the woman who cried over stray dogs in the rain could never harm our unborn baby.”
“I let my grief turn into anger, and I let that anger blind me to the truth.”
He reached out with trembling hands, gently gathering the hem of her sweater between his rough fingers.
“I lost five years of watching our son grow because I was too weak to see past my own wounded pride,” he choked out.
“I cannot give those years back to you, Nancy.”
“I cannot erase the nights you spent cold and terrified in that little room above the tailoring shop.”
“But as God is my witness, I will spend every remaining breath of my life making sure you and Leland never know fear, hunger, or sorrow again.”
Nancy looked down at the mighty man kneeling at her feet, weeping with his head bowed against her knees.
She remembered the young man on the beach who had promised to love her until the oceans dried up.
Slowly, her hands moved from her sides and came to rest gently upon the thick, dark hair of his bowed head.
She bent down, burying her face into his neck, and let her tears mix with his.
May you like
“Get up, Anias,” she whispered through her sobs, her fingers tangling in his hair.
“A father shouldn't kneel on the floor when his son is outside waiting for him.”
