Page 228 of Vita Mia

“It won’t matter if we don’t make the changes we need too.” Giovanni looked up. “That day, on the boat, I had in my heart the will to kill you.”

Lorenzo didn’t blink from his good eye. “Yet you came prepared to let me go. To send me to a different hell.”

“It was the option my wife wanted, and what I needed to hear because I was too full of bitterness and hate to see straight. I was supposed to make you pay. To avenge Patri.”

“Our father,” Lorenzo said. “I will take it to my grave what I did to our father.”

Dominic glanced to Giovanni.

“The reason I couldn’t kill you Lo is the very reason why you never put the knife in my back. The reason why you saved my life after your wife pulled the trigger. Because we are brothers.”

Lorenzo’s smile spread across his face. He nodded. “All I ever wanted was for you to admit it.”

“Let me finish,” Giovanni said. “We were born from two women who suffered the same. We held hands and we protected each other the way they did from the men who robbed them of everything.”

“Men? You mean Patri?”

“Do you remember my mother, the way she loved you, the way she protected you?” Giovanni asked.

Lorenzo frowned.

Giovanni took another swig of his whiskey this time from the bottle he brought to the table. He cleared his throat and continued. “I remember thinking she must be an Angel or a Saint. But she wasn’t. Then I remember thinking that she had to be the hero because Patri made us all his victims. But she wasn’t perfect. None of us are. When I sat in that jail and remembered her, I understood our brotherhood better when I looked at it through my mother’s eyes. She was preparing us for this day. For the day when blood should matter more than anything in this life. I should have trusted you more Lo, and you should have trusted me. We should have been different men because of her, because of the lessons she taught us. We looked to Patri, when we should have been looking to her.”

“But we aren’t supposed to be different. We’re Tomosino’s sons. We were born this way.”

Giovanni slipped Dominic another look. Dominic scooted his chair back and got up from the table then walked out. Lorenzo glanced to Giovanni and the open doorway. He sat forward. “I call you brother not because of Patri, but because to me you always were. And that’s how Madre wanted it. Your betrayal was never to happen because we should have known better.”

“You keep saying that? What are you trying to convince me of?” Lorenzo asked.

Giovanni sighed.

“I know this is hard but I have to say the truth is overdue. You and I need to tell the family. Together. I had time to think too. Isabella fucked me up. She robbed me of everything including my identity. I want it back. Not to challenge you, but to honor my future sons, to give myself my birthright. To start fresh. No more of these fucking lies, no more of these fucking secrets.”

When Giovanni didn’t respond Lorenzo sensed someone was behind him. He turned his head to see Zia being brought back in with the help of Dominic’s arm around her shoulder. She sat at the table once more. Giovanni turned his attention to her. “Zia, you’re all we have left of the past. The good and the bad.”

Zia looked over to Lorenzo with tears in her eyes.

“Don’t put her through this Gio. What’s the point? You and I need to finish this. For once. Let’s be honest with each other and not use any of them to justify our actions,” Lorenzo said.

Giovanni’s gaze never left Zia when he spoke. “I refused to see Patri as anything but a hero when I was a boy. I refused to see Rocco as anything but an uncle. And I refused to see you as anything but an equal,” he said and glanced to Lorenzo. “We can’t change what made us the men we are. But we need to understand it. You’re not my blood brother. You were never Tomosino’s son.”

“I’m not going to be disrespected again!” Lorenzo said and slammed his fist on the table. “On this we will not agree. I will not bury the truth!”

“He’s telling you the truth,” Zia sniffed. “Tomosino was not your father. Rocco was.”

Lorenzo exchanged his glare at Giovanni to one leveled at Zia.

“Your mother was a beautiful shy girl who—“

“Non mi dire bugie!” Lorenzo barked at her.

Zia broke down into tears.

“It’s not a lie,” Giovanni corrected him. Lorenzo’s nostrils flared and his eyes stretched with outrage. Dominic put a folder before him. He slid it across the table.

“Your mother was one of Patri’s victims. That is true. And he did take her from her family, just as he did Madre. That is true. But it was Rocco who raped and confined her. He was the one to impregnate her. And when he learned he would be a father it was after his own son had died. So Zia refused the child. She refused you. Rocco and Flavio crafted the lie. They gave you to Isabella. They erased who you were.”

“No,” Lorenzo shook his head slowly as he read the police documents on his mother. He looked up at Giovanni and shook his head. “Lies, you’re doing this to protect your position in the family. To keep me from challenging you for the Camorra.”

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