Footsteps(111)

He looked up at her and held out his hand. “Stay with me.” She put her hand in his and sat at his side.





“Have they news?”





“No. But they seem confident. I wish I could share it.” His head full of his talk with the Uncles, Carlo pulled Bina’s hand into his lap. “I need…I don’t know. Help. Advice?”





“I understand. You should seek help where you need it.”





He smiled a little at her deference. “I meant you, Bina. I need to talk something out.”





“Yes, of course.” She blushed, a faint pink rising on her cheeks.





“You understand what the Uncles will do when they have Jenny?” She nodded. That was all he needed—of course she would understand. They had solved her trouble in a similar way. “They have offered me the chance, when they find Trey, to…to kill Jenny myself.”





Again, she nodded—and that surprised him. He’d expected surprise from her. “Yes. I wondered.”





“You did?”





“Carlo. I understand the way of your uncles. Their way helped me to be here with you—to be here at all, maybe. I think to offer you that is respect, yes? And you said earlier that you would kill her.”





He nodded. “I want her dead. She needs to be dead. Even if I get Trey back—”





“When. You must think ‘when,’ not ‘if.’”





He waved that away. “Even then, he won’t be safe as long as she’s alive. And what she did—I’m to blame for a lot of it. Making the situation possible.”





“No. I don’t agree.”





“It’s my responsibility. I can’t just slough that off. But that brings me into the business. I don’t understand exactly how, but however, I never wanted that.”





“May I say my opinion?”





“Yes. That’s what advice is.”





“Please don’t, Carlo. You’re not that man, but I think you would become that if you did this yourself. You carry enough already on your shoulders. But you are not hard. You are not ruthless. Let your uncles do what they do. They have offered this, too?”





“Yes.” In fact, Carlo felt sure that Uncle Ben would prefer him to stay on his father’s side of the family.





She clutched his hand in both of hers. “Then don’t do this thing. Trey will come home to you, and your family will see to it that he is safe. It’s not your responsibility. To take care of Trey is. Let your family do what they do to take care of you. Please.”





Carlo looked into Bina’s hazel eyes. The strength he saw in them was resolute. “If…If I do, if I make that choice, will you stay? Could you stay with me even then?”





“I’m here, Carlo. With you. Make the choice you must, and I will be here still. But please think smart. You are, right now, the best kind of man. The best kind of father. You are who Trey needs. Who I need.”





He fed his hand into her hair. She’d had it in a ponytail earlier, but at some point she’d taken it down, and the silk of her long locks curled around his fingers. She tipped her head to the side, resting on his hand, and something inside him gave way.





Since he’d talked to Luca, while he was still in Providence, and found out what had happened—hours ago, now—Carlo had felt a disabling sense of internal division. Even as his head and heart had rampaged with fury and terror for his son, he had seemed to become numb at the same time. By the time he’d hurt Bina, the break inside had been complete. He’d felt like a cardboard cutout of himself, like he was standing in for himself as he watched his life fall apart from some point in the distance.





But this small gesture, his hand in her hair, her head resting on his hand, shattered the barrier inside him, and brought the terror and fury full force to suffuse him, body, heart, and mind. “Fuck. Bina, oh fuck. Trey. My boy.”





She must have heard the crisis in his words, because she dropped to her knees on the floor in front of him and pulled him into her arms. He tucked his head into the crook of her warm shoulder and wept while she combed her fingers through his hair and made loving murmurs at his ear.





His boy. His boy was gone. Trey was gone.





~oOo~





Carlo had settled but he and Bina had not moved when there was activity elsewhere in the room. He looked up to see Joey’s doctor. Carlo’s father and siblings were moving to circle the man, as they had before. This time, Carlo stood, too, and joined them, taking Bina by the hand and keeping her close.