The Don's Wife Died With His Secret Heir novel · Chapter 16 of 24
Chapter 16: The Yacht
Alessia's POV
Ottavio called before the gate had finished closing.
Santo put him on speaker and held the phone between us.
"Good morning, figlio. I'm sorry about the manners."
"Where is my son?"
"Safe, and eating a pastry." Ottavio sounded tired and kind. "Come to the marina at Bristol, you and Alessia, and the yacht will take us out for an hour. Bring the ledgers. I know you found them."
"And if I bring my men?"
"Then the boy goes for a swim, and I'm very sorry."
I saw Santo's hand tighten until the phone creaked.
"Sign the seat over to me with your own hand," Ottavio said. "In front of two witnesses, at sea, where no one can say I forced you. Then the boy comes home."
"You'd sit in my chair."
"I'd sit in it for my son."
He had said it so lightly that I thought Santo had missed it.
Santo had not.
He said, very softly, "I'll be there in twenty minutes."
The Barone yacht sat at the end of the long dock with her engines already turning.
Two men I did not know took our phones at the gangway.
Ottavio stood on the aft deck in his gray coat.
On a bench beside him, in a life vest too big for him, Luca was eating a pastry with both hands.
"Mamma!"
I went down on my knees on the teak and he threw himself at me, sticky with sugar.
I felt every one of his small bones.
"He was no trouble," Ottavio said. "I'd never hurt a child, Alessia. You know that."
"Do I?"
"Ask any child in the family."
My hands tightened on my son.
Santo took a step toward him and a man put a gun in his ribs.
"Sit, Santo," Ottavio said. "We'll go out past the lighthouse. It's a calm day."
The engines deepened, and the dock slid away.
I knew every board of that boat.
Mauro had run her for eight years, and he had taught me, one afternoon in my first year as a wife, where she kept her secrets.
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