Chapter 13 - Elena’s Anger
Elena healed differently than I did.
I became quieter.
She became angrier.
For months, she blamed herself.
“I should’ve left the document.”
“No.”
“If I hadn’t taken it—”
“Stop.”
“They wouldn’t have grabbed Luca.”
“They chose to grab Luca.”
She cried.
“I was trying to protect his future and almost got him hurt.”
I held her shoulders.
“You found evidence. They responded with cruelty. That belongs to them.”
She looked at me.
“Then why do I still feel guilty?”
Because guilt doesn’t care about logic.
Her therapist helped.
So did time.
Then one day, Viola sent a letter from prison.
Elena received a copy because it was addressed to both of us.
I almost threw it away unopened.
Elena stopped me.
“I want to read it once.”
Viola wrote three pages.
Most of it was exactly what I expected.
Justification.
Sacrifice.
Complaints that nobody understood the pressure she carried.
Then near the end:
I never intended for Luca to fall.
Elena stared at that sentence.
Not:
I’m sorry.
Not:
I should never have endangered him.
Only:
I never intended the worst possible outcome.
Elena folded the letter.
“Now I’m done.”
She threw it away.
That was her closure.
Not forgiveness.
Not reconciliation.
Clarity.
Viola still believed intent erased terror.
It didn’t.
Luca had been fourteen months old.
His fear mattered even if she believed Carlo would never actually drop him.
After that, Elena stopped talking about what she “should have done.”
She started talking about what came next.
We expanded the children’s foundation.
Not under the Russo family name.
Under Luca’s middle name.
Anthony.
It funded emergency legal help for caregivers trying to protect children from powerful relatives.
When I told Henry, he smiled.
“Your father would’ve liked that.”
“Maybe.”
I looked at Luca playing on the floor.
“But this isn’t for him.”
It was for my son.
May you like
And for every child adults treated like leverage.
👉 Elena finally stopped carrying Viola’s guilt—but Matteo was about to receive one last thing from his father that would change how he remembered him forever.
