Ruthless Heart

Our eyes meet, and I feel a well of emotion rise in my chest. I’m seeing a glimpse of my Nero, the person I knew before everything changed. “Did you keep it up?” he asks.

“The painting?” I shake my head. “It was hard to find the time. And painting… It was always my way of expressing myself. But once we were pretending to be a different family, it seemed… I don’t know, like it would be dangerous to be that honest, even on the canvas.”

Nero frowns. “I’m sorry,” he says. “That your art was taken away from you.”

Our gaze grows more intense. I have to look away. “It’s fine,” I say quickly, and focus on the food again.

“What about you?” I ask. “Do you ever think about a different life?”

He shrugs, his eyes on his plate. “There never been any point in that for me. I was born for this. Raised to be the Barretti boss.”

There’s a darkness in his expression, but it’s not anger. Something more like regret. A world-weary look that makes me wonder.

What kind of crimes are in his past? What kind of things has he seen?

I swallow, trying to block memories of those photos again. But just like always, Nero can see through me.

He clears his throat. “Listen, about what you saw the other day… That guy…”

Oh, God. I can’t listen to this. I thought that I wanted to know, but now that he’s going to tell me, I don’t want details.

“No,” I blurt. “You don’t have to—”

“I do,” he cuts me off. “I want you to know. He was a bad guy, Lily. I know it’s hard to believe, but he deserved it.”

“Deserved a beating like that?” I respond, silently adding, ‘to death.’

Nero gives a grim nod. “He raped a girl.”

My jaw drops. Whatever justifications I was expecting, it wasn’t this.

“What…?” I stammer, shocked. “What are you talking about?”

“The kid’s mom came to us,” Nero says, peeling the label off his beer bottle. “Her dad’s done some work for me in the past, but he’s a drunk now. He couldn’t…” he shakes his head. “So, the mom came to me. The girl’s fourteen,” he adds, fury in his voice. “That bastard picked her up on her way home from the grocery store. Didn’t let her go for two days.”

Tears prick at my eyes. “Oh my God,” I whisper. “Is she…?”

“Alive? Yeah, not that she wants to be,” Nero says grimly. “We’ve got her in a treatment place upstate. Therapists, the whole nine yards. They say she’ll come through it in the end, but…” His fists tighten involuntarily. “Shit like that doesn’t happen on my watch,” he tells me, eyes burning. “It’s on me to keep my people safe. And a scumbag like that walking around… He had to pay. I had to take care of it.”

“Of course you did,” I answer automatically. His head snaps up, like he thinks I’m being sarcastic, but I mean it, every word. I reach across and take his hand without thinking, squeezing it tightly. “Don’t even apologize. That guy deserved everything he got.”

Nero exhales. “But still… I’m the one who had to do it. Whatever shit goes down… It always falls to me.”

He meets my eyes for a long moment, our hands intertwined, and I realize, the Barretti crown isn’t just status, or power. It’s a responsibility, too. Nero may operate by a fucked up moral code, but it’s his to enforce.

My heart aches for him.

“It must be lonely,” I whisper. “Having to carry all of that alone.”

Nero pulls his hand away. “You don’t know anything about my life.”

“I didn’t mean—” I try to apologize, but the shutters are already slamming down in his eyes, severing our moment of connection.

His jaw tightens and his shoulders get stiff. “It’s time to go,” he says gruffly, getting to his feet.

“But the pizza…” I say.

He scowls, our intimacy forgotten. “I’ve had better.”