Chapter 17 - THE CHOICE MY MOTHER MADEMy mother’s oncologist did not soften the truth.
The chemotherapy had failed.
The cancer had spread to her liver.
Another treatment might extend her life, but the side effects would be severe.
“We’re discussing months,” Dr. Chen said. “Not years.”
My mother listened quietly.
I did not.
“There are trials,” I said. “New drugs. Specialists.”
“There are,” the oncologist replied.
“Then we try them.”
My mother touched my hand.
“Emma.”
“No.”
“We need to talk.”
“No.”
She had hidden my father.
My birth.
The evidence.
She was not allowed to hide death too.
“I am tired,” she said.
“You can rest after treatment.”
“I am tired of hospitals.”
“You want to stop?”
“I want to decide.”
The word silenced me.
Choice.
The right I had demanded from everyone else.
Now my mother was asking for the same.
Thomas sat beside her bed.
He had found no trace of Liam.
Security footage showed someone resembling my brother leaving custody, but Thomas believed the man was using a prosthetic mask.
Vittorio had prepared the escape story months earlier.
Liam could be anywhere.
My mother looked at Thomas.
“I want to go home.”
“Our house is gone,” I said.
“Not that home.”
She looked toward Dante.
“The lake house.”
Dante stiffened.
“What lake house?”
“Salvatore owned a house near Lake Geneva. Thomas and I used it as a meeting location during the investigation.”
Dante had never known.
My mother smiled faintly.
“Your father had secrets from everyone.”
“Why there?” I asked.
“Because Liam is waiting.”
Everyone stood.
“You know where he is?” Thomas demanded.
“He called last night.”
“And you didn’t tell us?”
“He believed federal communications were compromised.”
My mother removed a folded note from beneath her pillow.
“He escaped the transport after realizing the guard beside him was not real. He hid in an ambulance leaving the facility.”
“Is he injured?”
“Yes.”
“Why the lake house?”
“Because Thomas taught him the location when he was three. He called it the place where ghosts sleep.”
Thomas’s eyes filled.
Liam remembered.
We drove north before dawn.
The lake house stood behind frozen trees, abandoned but intact.
Liam opened the door holding a shotgun.
When he saw us, he lowered it.
My mother reached him first.
He collapsed into her arms.
For several minutes, no one spoke.
Then Liam saw Thomas.
His expression hardened.
“I didn’t come here for you.”
“I know.”
“You don’t get to call yourself my father.”
“I know.”
“Stop saying that.”
Thomas nodded.
Liam’s face twisted.
“You left us.”
“Yes.”
“You let me believe I wasn’t worth staying for.”
Thomas crossed the room slowly.
“I thought distance would keep you alive. I was wrong.”
“You were always wrong.”
“Yes.”
Liam hit him.
Thomas fell.
My mother gasped.
Thomas stood again.
“I deserved that.”
“No,” Liam said. “You deserve twenty-two years of it.”
“I do.”
Liam’s anger broke.
He began crying.
Thomas embraced him only after Liam grabbed his coat and pulled him closer.
It was not forgiveness.
But it was the first honest moment between them.
We stayed at the lake house for three days.
Police officially placed Liam under protective supervision after Detective Ruiz confirmed the murdered guard had been killed before the staged escape.
Marco testified from his hospital bed.
Sarah identified additional council members.
The federal case grew.
My mother sat near the frozen lake wrapped in blankets.
I joined her on the porch.
“You should take the treatment,” I said.
She looked at the snow.
“You want me to fight because you just learned how.”
“Yes.”
“I have been fighting since before you were born.”
“I know.”
“No, sweetheart. You are only beginning to understand.”
She told me about raising Liam while Thomas disappeared.
About discovering she was pregnant after Salvatore’s assault.
About nearly ending the pregnancy because she feared seeing him every time she looked at me.
“Did you?” I asked.
“See him?”
“Yes.”
“Sometimes, when you were angry.”
The answer hurt.
“Then you smiled.”
She touched my cheek.
“And you became entirely yourself.”
I leaned against her shoulder.
“I’m not ready.”
“Neither am I.”
“Then stay.”
She cried silently.
“I will take one more treatment.”
It was not the promise I wanted.
It was the choice she could offer.
That night, Dante stood alone on the dock.
I joined him.
“My mother said Salvatore came here.”
“Yes.”
“Does that bother you?”
“Everything about him bothers me.”
Dante looked across the frozen water.
“I spent my life trying to become powerful enough that no one could control me. I never understood that I was still obeying him.”
“By keeping the empire.”
“Yes.”
“What happens when you dismantle it?”
“I lose allies.”
“Good allies?”
“No.”
“Then you lose employees.”
“I will protect the legitimate workers.”
“And the others?”
“They will choose whether to enter legitimate work or leave.”
“You think it will be that easy?”
“No.”
At the far end of the lake, a light flashed.
Once.
Twice.
Three times.
Dante drew his weapon.
Thomas emerged from the house.
“That’s an old federal distress signal.”
A small boat moved through a break in the ice.
A woman lay inside.
Rosa pulled her onto the dock.
It was Agent Ward.
Her shoulder wound had reopened.
She had escaped custody.
“Vittorio has a second council,” she gasped.
Dante knelt beside her.
“Who leads it?”
Ward looked toward me.
“Salvatore.”
“My father is dead,” Dante said.
May you like
Ward shook her head.
“The man in the mausoleum wasn’t Salvatore Moretti.”
Related Stories
