Real protection would require boundaries, truth, legal safeguards and the courage to confront Giovanni whenever fear tried to make decisions for me.
I fastened Luca into his car seat.
Before I closed the door, Giovanni touched his son’s foot.
“I’ll call tomorrow,” he said.
“At ten.”
“At ten.”
He stepped back.
For the first time since learning I was pregnant, I drove away without checking the mirror for danger.
Luca slept peacefully behind me, his fever gone.
The secret that had ruled my life for fifteen months was over.
It had not ended with violence, revenge or a powerful man taking control.
It ended with my son alive, my name cleared and Giovanni standing in the rain, waiting for permission to become the father he had never known he was.
