Adrian did not lower his weapon.
Matteo did not move toward him.
For several seconds, the only sound came from the rain.
Then Nico began to fuss.
Alessia rocked him gently.
"It's all right," she whispered.
He buried his face against her shoulder.
Matteo watched the child.
"Does he know me?"
Alessia looked at him.
"No."
The answer was plain.
It hurt him anyway.
"Has he ever seen me?"
"Not that I know of."
Matteo looked at Adrian.
"And you kept her away from both of us."
Adrian gave a dismissive shrug.
"She made her own decisions."
Alessia shook her head.
"I made decisions because you gave me no safe choices."
"That's what you tell yourself."
"No."
Her voice grew firmer.
"That's what you made me live with."
I had never heard her speak to him like that.
Adrian seemed surprised, too.
He had expected fear to keep her quiet.
He had forgotten that fear could eventually become exhaustion.
And an exhausted person sometimes stopped protecting the people who had frightened them from the truth.
Matteo took a breath.
"Alessia, I need to understand something."
She waited.
"When you came back, why didn't you tell me who you were?"
She looked down at Noah.
"Because I didn't know what you would do."
"You thought I would hurt you?"
"I thought you would go after Adrian."
Matteo's eyes narrowed.
"Of course I would."
"And then he would come after us again."
He stopped.
Alessia continued.
"I wasn't afraid only of what he might do to me. I was afraid of what would happen when you decided to answer him."
The words were not an accusation delivered in anger.
They were worse.
They were an honest description of the man Matteo had become.
He looked toward the chapel floor.
I could see him remembering every time he had responded to a threat with another threat.
Every time he had decided that the safest way to protect someone was to make himself more dangerous than the person who frightened them.
He had believed that was strength.
Alessia had lived with the consequences.
"I would have protected you," he said.
She nodded sadly.
"I know you would have tried."
"Then why didn't you trust me?"
"Because I knew you would turn it into a war."
Matteo did not answer.
Adrian gave a quiet laugh.
"She's finally saying something sensible."
Matteo turned toward him.
"Don't mistake her honesty for support."
Adrian's smile faded.
Matteo looked at Nico again.
"Why is he here?"
Alessia tightened her hold.
"Because he belongs with me."
"That isn't what I meant."
She understood the question now.
Her face changed.
I saw it happen before she spoke.
She looked down at the little boy, then toward Adrian.
"Nico became part of the danger because I wouldn't do what Adrian wanted."
Matteo waited.
"What did he want?"
"Silence."
"About what?"
Alessia took a breath.
"About everything that happened before I disappeared."
Adrian shifted his feet.
"You're twisting this."
She ignored him.
"He wanted me to keep the same story. He wanted you to believe that I had left because I no longer wanted you."
Matteo's expression hardened.
"And you let me believe it."
The words came out more quietly than I expected.
Alessia nodded.
"Yes."
He looked at her for a long time.
"I thought you were dead."
Her mouth trembled.
"I know."
"I searched for you."
"I know."
"I stopped searching because every lead ended the same way."
She closed her eyes.
"I know."
Matteo's anger returned.
"Stop saying that."
Alessia opened her eyes.
"What do you want me to say?"
"I want to know why you never found a way to tell me."
She did not answer immediately.
Then she said, "Because every time I considered it, I remembered what Adrian said would happen."
Matteo looked toward the man at the doorway.
Adrian's expression remained hard, but I noticed that his eyes kept returning to Nico.
It was not the look of someone who cared about the child.
It was the look of someone calculating how much the child mattered to everyone else.
That made me uneasy.
I had seen people use family as leverage before.
They rarely admitted that was what they were doing.
Matteo saw the look, too.
He shifted slightly, blocking Adrian's view of the babies.
"Don't look at them."
Adrian laughed.
"You're giving me orders now?"
"I'm telling you to keep your eyes on me."
For once, Adrian did exactly that.
The room seemed to tighten around the two men.
Rafael remained near the wall, ready but careful.
I could tell he was waiting for Matteo's next decision.
So was I.
Matteo looked back at Alessia.
"You said you wanted to come home."
"Yes."
"Do you still?"
She glanced around the chapel.
Then she looked at him.
"I want the children to be safe."
"That's not what I asked."
"It is the only answer I can give you right now."
Matteo looked hurt.
He nodded anyway.
I had expected him to demand more.
Instead, he seemed to understand that he had already demanded too much from her over the years.
He had asked for trust without first asking what had destroyed it.
He had wanted her return without understanding what she had survived.
And now he was learning that wanting someone beside you did not mean you had made it safe for them to stay.
Noah moved in Alessia's arms.
She shifted him gently, supporting his head.
Matteo watched her hands.
"Can I come closer?"
She considered the question.
Then she nodded.
He took one slow step.
Noah looked at him.
For a moment, the baby remained quiet.
Matteo stopped moving.
He did not reach out.
He simply let Noah see him.
I felt something inside me loosen.
It was such a small thing.
A man standing still.
A baby looking at him.
But Matteo had spent so long trying to make Noah accept him that he had never thought about what it might mean to let the child decide when he was ready.
Alessia noticed the change.
She did not praise him.
She did not encourage him.
She only held Noah and allowed the moment to happen.
Adrian broke the silence.
"You're all acting as if this changes anything."
Matteo did not look away from his son.
"It changes what I know."
"You know nothing."
"Then tell me something true."
Adrian's face tightened.
Matteo finally turned toward him.
"Tell me why you were so determined to keep Alessia away."
Adrian's expression became unreadable.
"Because she was a danger to you."
Alessia shook her head.
"That was never the reason."
Adrian ignored her.
"She knew things that could destroy the life you built."
Matteo stared at him.
"What things?"
Adrian said nothing.
I could see the answer beginning to form in Matteo's mind.
He had spent years looking for the person who had betrayed him.
Perhaps he had been looking in the wrong direction.
"You're afraid of what she knows," Matteo said.
Adrian's silence was enough to make the room colder.
Alessia looked at Matteo.
"I didn't want to destroy your life."
He met her eyes.
"What did you want?"
She answered without hesitation this time.
"I wanted you to know the truth before someone else used it against you."
Matteo stood motionless.
The words reached him.
I could tell by the way his face changed.
For years, he had thought Alessia had chosen herself over him.
Now he was beginning to see that she might have been trying to protect him from something he could not control.
That did not erase the years she had been gone.
It did not make the pain disappear.
But it changed the shape of it.
Matteo looked toward Rafael.
"Nobody touches the children."
Rafael nodded.
"And nobody moves Alessia unless she agrees."
Alessia looked at him with cautious surprise.
He held her gaze.
"I'm not asking you to trust me tonight."
He glanced at Noah.
"I'm asking you to let me stop making things worse."
She did not answer.
But she did not turn away.
For the first time that evening, Matteo had offered something without demanding a reward.
Adrian watched him, and I could see that the change frightened him.
A man who could no longer be controlled by his anger was much harder to manipulate.
Click here to continue reading: PART 7: Matteo Finally Stopped Giving Orders, and Alessia Revealed Why the Chapel Had Become the Place She Feared Most
The Baby Who Rejected Every Pair of Arms Except One, and the Secret His Father Was Too Afraid to Face
Part 6 of 10
