Chapter 19
Alcee froze, stiff as a board, when Don Torquato Lozano grabbed her in his arms and pulled her into them and held her tight. His nose buried in her hair as if breathing her in and then exhaling loudly. Her feet were no longer on the floor as she was squished to his chest.
“Leave me again and it will be in a body bag,” he whispered in her ear.
Her eyes widened at the growled threat. Before she could react, however, she felt Antero pushing in between her and Torquato, growling in his
own way.
“Put my mother down right now. She is not a toy to be played with.”
Torquato looked down at the child with a smile. “Is this so?”
“Put her down.”
Alcee almost laughed when her son, through means she didn’t know he understood, managed to smack Torquato directly behind the knee making his knee weak and buckling it.
Alcee was set on her feet, but she was surprised by a kiss to her forehead before he completely released her. “What are you doing?” She frantically wiped it off.
“Kissing my fiancée.” He squatted down though ignoring her huffed indignant hiss, “hello son.”
Antero rolled his eyes and looked at his mother, “I want to go home.”
“Why?” Torquato called him out bluntly. “I have done nothing wrong. I showed your mother affection.”
“You touched her without permission. My teachers tell us all the time our bodies are our own and we don’t touch anyone without express permission. My mother has told me many times I do not need permission to hug her, kiss her or cuddle with her and I still do because it is respectful. You picked her up. Rude.”
Torquato looked up at Alcee, “he is eloquent for five.”
“He is.” She said nothing more because she knew her son was correct, and she didn’t want to dissuade him ever to speak his mind. The first year of Antero’s life he said very little for words. Mama was a rarity. Milk was his other word. He pointed. He grunted. Talking wasn’t his strong suit. Yet she knew at the time he was taking everything in. His eyes were constantly focused and assessing everything. She and the twins often said the child opened his eyes upon birth and was so enthralled with what he saw he was simply too caught up in looking around.
By the age of two, she couldn’t shut him up. His vocabulary was extensive. His ability to count, add and subtract by the age of three was stunning at a third–grade level. Susana once to her. By the age of four he was talking in full sentences, doing multiplication and division and reading book joked she half expected to see the little punk using magic like the kid in the Roald Dahl book swirling things around with his fingers in the air. Alcee admitted she often wondered the same thing.
The one thing this child wasn’t advanced in was emotional connection. He didn’t connect much with anyone. Her, Susana, Amal and the child psychologist who came to the apartment once a week to work with him, were all blessed with his love. The rest of the world though, even the teacher he’d been assigned for the last two years, was barely tolerated.
“You like to protect your mother?”
“Yes.” Antero stared at his father boldly.
“I want to protect her too.”
“You’re the bad guy.”
“Am I?”
Yes. You are wearing a gun under your suit.”
Perhaps I am but you will see I can be a good guy.” He reached out a hand to cup the rounded cheek of the boy and Antero stepped back from the touch and held his mother’s hand. “You do not like to be touched.”
“Not by anyone who isn’t my mom or my tias.”
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Chapter 19
“We will get there.” He gave a nod. He clicked his tongue and rose back up, shooting Alcee an annoyed glance. “He is afraid of his own father. This is on you.”
“You will find I don’t particularly care about shouldering blame in situations where I felt strongly I was protecting my son. Also, this is not all on me. When I found out was pregnant I did return to the hotel. They did not want to tell me much, but they did confirm no man with the name Bruno was there. My girlfriends and I staked it out for a week, but you never returned. I would have told you then.”
“Would you have?” he seemed to doubt her
“Undoubtedly. I needed protection. My father was threatening to force an abortion and end my life. I was scared.”
He looked to Antero in horror and then back to her, “you speak so freely in front of him?”
“I learned when he was quite young, he hears everything anyway. Even when I think he’s in another room away from the conversation, he will bring it up later. It makes more sense to talk freely and this way if he has questions we can address them directly instead of him misinterpreting. We also speak very frankly about his security and safety because he knows he is the grandson of Don Mariani and people will try to hurt him to get to my father.”
“I wear a necklace with a tracker.” Antero said dryly. He then pointed to his one pierced ear. “And my earring is the same. If I lose one, I hopefully keep the other.”
“He is five.” Torquato snarled furiously. “Too young to know such things.”
“He is five, Don Lozano but he is smart, resilient and he is the child of a woman who is known as the exiled Principessa of the Mariani family. You’ve been out of the country, no doubt oblivious to the chatter on the streets here but at the end of the day, most people know who I am. I’ve endured multiple people making threats. Tyrell, who was one of your grandfather’s capos, took me under his protection and I will forever be grateful for this. When Tyrell sold off his company to you at your transition of power so he could retire, Kylen kept me on. It gave the impression I was protected here therefore the threats were minimal, but they still exist.” She looked down at her son who was staring up at her with the same honey brown eyes of his father, “knowledge is power. The more Antero knows, the safer and stronger he will be.”
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Her son is gifted so it’s understandable that he should know.
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