Which was a big reason Brit and I never got along.
We'd been days away from breaking up before the stick turned blue because we'd been so incompatible.
But after that, it wasn't about us.
It was about Ottavio.
So she threw everything she had into him.
I threw much of myself into work, setting us up, giving us the kind of life I wanted us to have, but without the blood money attached to it.
I'd dropped the ball.
I could see that now.
I'd been around. I wasn't an absent father. I was home for dinner. I did family outings on weekends. I'd even attempted to help Ottavio through Scouts before we both realized he was a city kid through and through, and there was almost no reason to learn wilderness skills.
I'd always been a big part of my son's life.
But I hadn't been that part.
The part that he needed so badly right then.
"It's okay," my mother said, giving my shoulder a squeeze. "He'll come out eventually. Ottavio, honey, I'm making pancakes," she called through the door before leading me away. "He will follow his stomach out here eventually," she assured me.
"I can't get through to him," I said, dropping down on the stool at the white marble island as my mother got to work behind it.
"Gee, I wonder where he got those stubborn Costa genes from," she said, shooting me a raised brow.
And, yeah, I'll admit it, I hadn't exactly been open with her when she'd suddenly come back into my life, either. But I'd spent almost my entire life thinking she was dead, that my father had murdered her. I'd barely had memories of her. Enz did, being older, but my memories of her were faded around the edges, nothing was concrete.
Without her, I'd grown up to make myself hard and cold so my father and his men couldn't hurt me.
So when she came back, that was all I had to give her.
Hard and cold.
It had been a long, slow process toward reconnecting. Or, really, connecting at all.
"Listen, Santiago," she said, leaning her forearms down on the counter. "He lost his mom. You lost your mom too. Try to remember how that felt. Then approach him the way you would have wanted someone to approach you in your grief."
That was good advice.
Even if my memories of that time weren't as clear as I would have liked them to be.
I remembered feeling lonely and angry more so than anything else.
My own father, being the one who made my mother disappear, and genuinely having no interest in being a parent, was never around.
I was there for Ottavio.
Even if he didn't want me to be.
But maybe I needed to, I don't know, take him to the movies or something. Show him I was there for one-on-one time, that he wasn't alone.
"That's your brother," my mother said, walking over toward the door at the sound of the buzzer, letting him up, then getting back to her pancakes. "Does Ottavio like chocolate chips in his pancakes?" she asked.
"Brit never let him try," I told her. "She was the green-smoothie kind of mom."
Maybe I could get him one.
Or would he think that was like me trying to replace her?
I was so fucking out of my depths here.
"Ma," my brother said, kissing her cheek as he moved into the kitchen. "Santi," he greeted. "Where's the kid?"
"Avoiding me," I explained.
"That's why I'm here, actually. Why I wanted Ma here too," Lorenzo added. "I want to talk to you about something."
"About what?" I asked, stiffening.
I wasn't used to our new dynamic. In the past, he'd always just been my big brother. Did I listen to his council? Sure. But I didn't have to take his advice.
Now, though, he was more than just by brother.
He was more than just my boss.
He was the Capo dei Capi.
If he wanted me to do something, I didn't have a fuckuva lot of say about it.
"The kid," he explained.
"What about him?" I asked, stiffening.
"You're going to need help," he said. "More help than Ma can even give."
"I am happy to help, though, Santi," she cut in. "I want to make that clear."
"She is, but she has some catching up to do in life," Lorenzo said.
He was right.
Of course he was.
She'd lost just as much as we both had with her being gone. More, even. And I'd been relying on her a lot since Brit was killed.
Life and work didn't stop for grief. You could pause it, put a pin in it, but some shit needed to be handled. Life had to get back on track.
So when I'd needed to work—either for my business, or for my brother—I'd been having my mom come and stay with Ottavio.
"Yeah," I agreed, nodding. "I've been looking into it," I added.
"Well, stop," Enzo said, snorting. "You can't just dial 1-800-Nanny and hire someone to work for you, Santi," he explained.