Page 29 of The Scent of Snow
“That’s not why he wants me gone. My father, my real father, was a bad man. And I’m just like him.” He jutted out his chin. “Tell Clara. I was halfway to the forest when she appeared. If it weren’t for her, I would be far from here now.”
That explained their disappearance. Antonio was running away, and Clara followed her brother. What an utter waste. One minute more, and they would have met the riverbed.
“I knew your father.”
“You did?” The boy’s eyes lit up, but he quickly concealed the reaction and shrugged. “Don’t bother telling me how good he was. I won’t believe you.”
“He was a selfish bastard. I wanted to kill him more than once.”
The boy sucked in a breath.
Pedro’s gaze pierced through the darkness. “Bernardo Ferreira was a weak, conniving drunkard who left your mother in a dire situation.”
Silence engulfed them as Antonio’s shoulders sagged, the boy’s defenses crumbling under the burden of truth. His eyes closed, and a ragged, whistling breath escaped his lips.
“And I suppose I will grow up to be just like him, huh? Like father, like son.” He looked into his hands as if already envisioning the terrible deeds he was fated to accomplish.
Pedro had shared Antonio’s dread for longer than he could remember. His heart clenched, and he averted his gaze. It was with difficulty that he spoke. “I knew your father, and I know you are nothing like him.”
Antonio’s head snapped up, the white of his eyes a stark contrast to the grime on his face.
“Your father would have left his half-sister to fall into the abyss. Selfish bastard he was, he would never have risked his life to save a stupid girl.”
“I couldn’t let her die.” Antonio’s admission hung between them and, with it, a truth and a promise. The truth of the boy’s goodness — the promise of the man he would become, shaped not by blood, but by choice.
“I knew your mother, too.” Pedro exhaled a pent-up breath.
“Huh?”
“When she was your age, she saved a boy. She did it selflessly, and he never forgot. When I look at you, I see her, not him.”
A weight lifted from Pedro’s shoulders.
This was for you, Julia, for saving the boy I was back then.He had been so lonely, so lost. But in the touch of a girl’s fingertips, he had found the man he wanted to be. Pedro still kept that boy in his chest, and for the first time, he dared to let him go.
Antonio gripped Pedro’s hand with surprising force. “Do you think I can grow up to be good? Like my mother?”
Pedro would not lie to him. He deserved the truth. “We all have evil inside us. The amount is beyond our control.” Especially for those who were born to bad fathers. “How much of this evil we use against others is our choice.”
“But if my father was bad—”
“My father was bad as well. That only means we will have to control our evil even more.”
Chapter 11
Annewokeup,brushingher arms. They had fallen asleep around the nativity scene. Griffin sprawled over the hard stone floor, and Julia slept above him. Her brother was so chivalrous that nothing of Julia’s petite frame touched the ground. She was draped atop his chest, her face resting above his heart. Henrique had moved to the sofa and snored, a sleeping Isabel over his lap. Anne massaged her neck, her gaze straying to the window. Frail daylight filtered through the gauzy curtains.
It was Christmas morning.
The door opened with a creak, bringing in a gush of chilled wind. A tawny crop of hair poked through the gap, then a smaller, black one. The children. Anne sprang to her feet. They were safe. They tiptoed inside as if unsure of their welcome. Anne’s heart squeezed when she saw Pedro’s great coat on Tony and his cashmere scarf wrapped around Clara. She had been right, then. Pedro had saved the children. Of course, he did.
Julia awoke first, and with a whine, she launched herself up. Crying, she knelt in front of her daughter and son and hugged them, her sobs like a perfect Christmas carol.
Griffin embraced his family, his arms large enough to circle all.
Tony pulled away and looked into Griffin’s eyes. “I know you must be mad, but I didn’t take Clara. She followed me, and when —”
Griffin stopped Tony’s words with a hug. “I know you didn’t. Never leave us again.”
