Ties That Bind (33 page)

“I understand that I will always be in his shadow. I will always be Nicolai Terenari's daughter. I don't understand why that must be my burden to bear. I didn't ask for it or even desire it.”

“We all have a past that haunts us, Toni. Do we judge ourselves because of it or do we move on and make amends?

“Is that what you're doing, making amends?”

He smiled, refusing to answer. “Your father is a dangerous man but not an unlovable one. Your mother found a reason to love him.”

“He's not the same person,” she argued.

“And that makes forgiveness impossible for you?

“Yes. No. I mean-” She stopped, spotting Jimmie rounding the corner toward them. “I'm sorry. I just don't think I understand. You are being philosophical.”

“Is this a private party?”  Jimmie stepped from one of the crumbling buildings, his eyes bright.

“Just coming to look for you. Come, let’s go this way.”

Mitch led them farther down the road to single home set back from the road. Unlike all the others, this one had remained livable. It was still old, its age showing clearly, but someone had taken the time to restore it and keep the overgrowth at bay.

“This was your home?” Toni asked, tucking her arms into Mitch's and Jimmie's as she stepped to walk between them. “Before America, I mean.”

“I was born here,” he answered simply. “And I lived here until my father died.”

“Dare I ask how he died?”

Mitch chuckled, leading them through the tiny home and onto an even smaller garden in the back. Grass had taken over the former vegetable garden but a grouping of small orange trees still stood strong. “You likely already know.”

He sank down onto one of the remaining ledges, trickles of rocks dropping to the ground with his weight. He fingered one of the overgrown bushes nearest him. “My mother tended these oranges. They were her joy, she said. Her hands forever smelled of citrus. Gino would come by in the afternoons and she would give him handfuls to take back to his wife. He tried to pay her for them but my mother wouldn't hear of it. God's provisions couldn't be bought, she told him. But he found other ways to pay back her kindness. Sending men to fix the leaking roof while she was gone for the weekend to visit family. Or sending people to harvest the field in the dead of night so she woke up to baskets full of a garden's worth of food.”

“He loved her,” Toni guessed.

Jimmie shook his head, reaching to pluck an unripe orange from the tangle of vines. “Loving her would've made her a target. Gino would never have allowed himself such a weakness.”

“You don't allow or disallow love, Jimmie.”

Jimmie laughed. “Don't be childish. Do you think the men of 
la familia
are bachelors by choice?  We are born alone and will die alone. For us, admitting loving someone is like signing their death certificate.”

As soon as the words were out of his mouth, Jimmie regretted it. Mitch's eyes flashed away, the torn look on his face sending a surge of memories through Jimmie's head. What had Gino said when they were fighting over Toni?

“Did you learn nothing from your mother's death?”

“
Of course, Gino. But I'm not irresponsible enough to fall in love with her.”

Had that been what happened?  Had Gino fallen in love with Mitch's mother?

As if Mitch had read his thoughts, he shrugged at the unasked question. “Either way, they were both married to others. His wife died during childbirth while they were still young. And my father,” he hesitated, “my father was more a professional drunk than a father.”

“Your mother never mentioned him,” Toni murmured. “When you came to America, she never once mentioned his name in the hundreds of hours we spent together in your kitchen.”

Mitch nodded, his voice a low, quiet hum of memory.  “America was to be a new place and a new beginning. A place where her son could find freedom from the shadows of the men she believed would both save and destroy him.”

He was silent, waiting for them to understand. He expected Toni to understand first, to know him with inherent ease, but it was Jimmie who understood first. “Gino killed your father.”

Mitch gave a single nod then raised his eyes to bore into Toni’s. “We each have our burdens. It's how we address them that determines the person we shall become.”

Jimmie looked from one to the other. It was obvious Mitch was attempting to teach her a lesson. Something that, he suspected, the both of them had learned but she still had not. Why else would Mitch have bothered to tell him something so personal, so immensely private, that no one the world over was privy to it?

Mitch wouldn't look at him; he was intent on Toni. She was touching a locket hanging low on her neck, her other hand grazing along the stone remnants of the cottage. Jimmie straightened, the fingering of the jewelry around her neck making things fall into place for him. He stepped toward her, placing his hands on her shoulders.

“Your father is a despicable man. I won't bother to pretend I hold any fondness for him. But you,” he dropped his forehead to hers, “you may be his blood but you are nothing like him. I would accept you by my side at any time.”

CHAPTER SIXTY

“They are your allies?” Gino's voice was quiet, contemplative. “They are the ones you have chosen to be at your side?  Your most trusted confidantes?”

Mitch nodded, his eyes meeting Gino's but only briefly.

“A man who would sacrifice his own blood and the enemy's daughter?”

Mitch had no response for him. His words were true, his admonition coming only from the concern Gino felt for Mitch's safety. He knew Gino would accept whatever decision he made, would already fathom consequences that Mitch himself could not yet realize. But it was not as if he planned this. He had not gone willingly into any relationship with Jimmie. Ashli had done that for him. That it had turned into something far more meaningful than either imagined was not by any conscious effort on their part.

Toni was a different matter entirely. Gino had anticipated their connection as children. He had known it, planned for it, and done his best to shelter them from the pain their friendship would bring. After all the years of work, Mitch was now destroying everything Gino had so meticulously crafted...by simply allowing her to be at his side.

He glanced to where Jimmie and Toni sat, their heads drawn together in quiet whispers – no doubt trying to piece together the puzzles of his bewildering life story which must have only grown murkier with the recent revelations. He chuckled at their furrowed brows, causing them both to glance his way.

They smiled, an almost identical sheepish grin at having been caught in their gossiping. And yet, neither made any move to apologize for it, only dropping their heads back together to continue their dissection of his existence.

He considered Gino's nonverbal warning, knowing how dangerous his liaison with the two was. His ties to Gino, an impending war with Terenari, the aftermath of Ashli's death – all would pale in comparison to the murderous swell that would occur if the IOC were to learn of his decision.

“Mitch?” Gino's eyes were on him, patiently waiting for Mitch's internal struggles to cease.

“They are my family, Gino.”

Gino's guiding hand was light on Mitch's shoulder, his fingers tightening with a calm, learned reassurance. “Then when the war comes, from whichever direction it may blow, they will be mine as well.”