Page 188 of Vega

PRODIGY MORETTI

The address Jamir sent led me deep into Michigan. The paved road disappeared first. Then the houses vanished and were replaced by woods. By the time my GPS told me I’d arrived, trees surrounded both sides of the narrow road, and the small house sat far enough back that somebody could live there for years without being noticed.

I parked and stared through the windshield. My hands wouldn’t stop shaking. I hated coming without telling Wise, Vega, my mother, or the rest of the family. Novi was the only person who knew I had planned to make the trip. She’d offered to come with me, but I told her no. If this turned into some shit I couldn’t control, I needed her home and safe.

I’d been shot at. I’d watched men die. I’d walked into situations knowing I might not walk back out. None of that had scared me this much.

My father was really on the other side of that door.

I got out and forced my legs to walk toward the porch. Each step made the eighteen years between us feel heavier. Every birthday I’d wondered about him came with me. So did every time I’d searched a crowd for his face and every question my mother couldn’t answer.

I reached the door and knocked.

I waited a few minutes before I knocked again.

“Papà!” I bellowed, but I got silence in response.

I stood there long enough to wonder if Jamir had been wrong or if my father had seen me pull up and escaped through the back.

Then I heard movement inside. My heart slammed against my ribs.

I struck the door with my fist. “Pop! I know you in there! Open the door!”

Suddenly, the door swung open, and I forgot how to breathe as I stared into the eyes I remembered looking down at me when I was a boy. Those eyes glazed over the second they landed on me.

Love was there. I saw it before he buried it beneath fear. He swallowed hard, forcing back the yearning in his eyes and spat, “You shouldn’t be here.”

Offended, I took a step back. “That’s what you got to say to me?”

He avoided my eyes, looking behind me as if he was expecting someone else to show up. “You need to leave.”

“I spent eighteen years looking for you, and that’s all you have to fucking say?!’

Finally, he gave me his full attention. “I’ve been hiding for a reason.”

“From me?”

His face twisted with pain. “No, son. I would never leave because of you. I left for you.” As my brows furrowed in confusion, he looked beyond me toward the road. “Who knows you’re here?”

The fear in his eyes gave me the first answer I needed. He hadn’t left because he stopped loving me. Somebody had scared him enough to abandon his entire life.

“Nobody knows I’m here,” I assured him. “But they will if you don’t tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Prodigy—”

“I’m not leaving. You can talk to me inside, or I can stand out here yelling until somebody hears me.”

He stared at me for several seconds before stepping aside.

The house was small and old, with plain furniture and no pictures on the walls. Nothing inside suggested he had built another family or created a life he enjoyed. He had just existed there.

Renzo closed the door, then turned toward me. His eyes moved over my face, taking in every year he’d missed.

Tears threatened to spill from them. “Mio figlio. (My son.)”

Those two words broke me down. I crossed the room and grabbed him. His arms came around me immediately. He held me hard enough to tell me he’d wanted and needed this as much as I had. I shut my eyes and fought tears against his shoulder. For one moment, I was a little boy again, holding the father I’d expected to return before bedtime.

Then anger brought me back.