I don’t know why I’m nervous. I don’t think there is anything I really even want out of this. Other than to know why and how the fuck she walked out on us. Mostly because I want to make sure I never give my wife a reason to leave me. Not that I’d ever fucking let her. Best thing I ever did was kidnap Daisy when she tried to run.

I have a few memories of the woman who gave birth to us, but not many. I guess I blocked her out. What I do remember is how sad Gio and Santo were. And how Marcel asked for her for months after her death.

We all sit in silence along one side of the table. Gio in the middle, Marcel and Vin on one side of him, Santo and me on the other. None of us move as she slowly makes her way towards us. Her hands are shaking, one tightly wrapped around Tommy’s.

“Hello. Thank you for meeting me,” she whispers, her voice quiet. Shaky.

No one says a word for what seems like forever until Gio clears his throat. “Have a seat.” He nods his head to the chairs in front of him.

She flinches but recovers quickly, before lowering herself onto the chair Tommy pulls out for her. “I… ah… I know you all must have a lot of questions for me.”

“I have nothing for you,” Gio says. “But they do.” He looks down each side of the table, to the four of us. “And once they’ve got their answers, we’re done here. We aren’t looking for a mother. The time we needed one has long since passed.”

“I know.” Her eyes look like they’re tearing up as she repeats, “I know.”

“You look great,” I tell her. “How… ah… how long have you been with the MC?” I don’t know why the fuck that’s the first question I ask. But it seemed like a decent icebreaker. Something to cut the tension.

“Tommy found me after… ah… one of Giovanni’s—one of your father’s men left me on the side of the road. Out of town.”

A sound of rustling from the gardens has my brothers and me standing up and drawing guns in that direction. “I thought I told you to come alone,” Gio hisses.

“We did,” Tommy says as he positions himself in front of our mother.

“I don’t need to see you to shoot you,” Gio shouts.

“Don’t shoot,” a female voice calls back as a young girl steps out from where she was hiding and quickly walks towards us. “Mum, what the fuck? This is your lunch date with Dad?”

Did she just say mum?

Chapter Sixteen

Did she just call Mary mum? She did. What the actual fuck?

“Who the fuck are you?” I ask the young girl who just scrambled out of the gardens.