Page 143 of I'm sorry, Princess

Serena kneels in front of the stone, carefully placing the fresh flowers into the vase. She pulls out the old ones, there aren’t many, and they’re still half-alive. My mother must come here often.

My vision blurs. My throat feels too tight. I can’t lose it here, not in front of her, not in front of him. Then I feel it, Serena’s hand sliding into mine, squeezing, a soft, steady pressure that somehow cracks my chest open even more. She gives me a small smile, the kind that isn’t meant to fixanything, just to let me know she’s here. And it fucking destroys me.

We stand there in silence for five minutes, the world hushed around us except for the faint rustle of the trees. I lower myself onto the bench beside his grave. From here, I can see every detail of the photo, every line of the engraving.

“Tell me about him,” she says softly, her voice barely above the wind.

And just like that, the memories start coming, sharp, vivid, like no time has passed at all.

“I was seven when he started teaching me chess,” I say, eyes lifting to the pale stretch of sky above the cemetery. “He’d beat me every single time.” A faint, humorless laugh escapes. “But I didn’t care. I was just happy he wanted to spend time with me. I knew he was a busy man… but he always made time for his family.”

My gaze drops to the marble, to his name etched into it. “He adored my mother,” I continue, my voice quieter now. “She wasn’t just his wife, she was his whole life. While he loved us all, she was… his world.”

A ghost of a smile tugs at my mouth as the memories unfurl. “He’d bring her flowers, always her favorites, chocolates, summer dresses. And at two in the morning, when they thought no one was watching, they’d dance in the kitchen. No music, just… them.”

My throat tightens. “They’d laugh. Hug. Whisper to each other. And I’d be sitting on the stairs in the dark, just watching… thinking how fucking lucky I was to have parents like that.”

A single tear slips down my cheek before I even realize it’s there. I don’t know if Serena notices, she’s crying quietly, her eyes red, her lashes wet.

I stopped crying a decade ago. The night I found out he was gone, I cried until my chest felt hollow. Then something in me burned out, and I never let it come back. I remember signing the papers my mother pushed across the desk, transferring everything to me, the business, the responsibilities, the weight. And then I remember being in my car. Driving. Ending up at Kirill’s fighting club without even thinking.

The first person I faced in that ring was Andres. I let him hit me. Hard. Over and over. I didn’t fight back, didn’t block. I deserved it, deserved to be punished for being a clueless teenager while my father was dying.

Andres caught on after a while. He stopped mid-swing, just looking at me like he could see the break inside me. That night, we stopped being just strangers. That night, he became my brother.

“He seems like he was a good man,” Serena says, her voice soft, eyes still glassy. “I wish I could’ve met him. You look so much alike… it’s like I’m looking at you, just… older.”

A dark thought creeps in, cold and heavy, maybe one day I’ll be here too. A stone with my name on it. Another Moretti buried beside him.

“He was a good man,” I say simply, and the words feel like both truth and loss pressed into my chest.

We stay there for a while longer, and I tell her more, how he taught me to drive on the back roads outside Florence, his hand steady on my shoulder when I stalled the engine. How he taught me to fight, drilling into me the importance of protecting myself, protecting family. The endless chess games where he crushed me, the summer trips where he’d convince me to put the phone away and just live. Serena listens quietly, not interrupting, her gaze fixed on me like each word matters.

“He would’ve adored you, Serena,” I tell her, and I mean it. Different life, different circumstances, he would have loved her. “I adore you.” My chest aches, my ears ring.

She steps forward and wraps her arms around me, holding me like she could keep the pieces together. I hear her sniff, and I let myself feel the pain, really feel it. Ten years I’ve avoided this grave. Ten years of pretending it wasn’t real. I went to his funeral drunk, half-aware of where I even was. This is different. This is final. He’s not coming back.

Yesterday, when I told her I loved her, I meant it. Couldn’t stop it. And now here I am, at my father’s grave, holding the woman I love whose father might have put him here. Life’s a sick joke.

We prepare to leave, but before I go, I step close to the stone. My voice is low, meant for him alone. “I’ll take care of them.” I will make them pay. I don’t have the proof yet, but I know. I fucking know. Serena glances at me, confused, but she doesn’t ask.

I take her hand and we walk out. The drive back is quiet. The kind of silence that fills every space between two people but doesn’t push them apart. Tomorrow, we fly back to New York.

When we step into the house, the smell of fresh dough and oregano hits me. My mother’s in the kitchen, rolling out pizza dough. Her eyes are red, she knows exactly where we’ve been. She comes to hug Serena, tells her to sit, but Serena insists on helping set the table. Nicolas joins us too, and from the way my mother’s cooked, you’d think we were feeding a small army.

We sit. We eat. We laugh. For a moment, it feels like a family again. For a moment, I can almost believe my father’s just in the other room.

“Lorenzo was such a naughty boy,” Nicolas says with a grin, sipping his wine. “He used to run around shooting the guards with those paint guns. One time, Giovanni was hosting an important meeting, and all the guards were standing there covered in paint like a rainbow.”

My mother laughs, and Serena’s eyes light up with it.

“Or when he hid in the kitchen closet with all the cookies I made for our guests,” my mother adds. “I baked a hundred cookies, and Lorenzo stole them all. Ate half before anyone found him.”

“Oh, that day,” Nicolas bursts out laughing. “We had to take him to the hospital! I told the nurse a nine-year-old ate fifty cookies. And the worst part? They were peanut butter cookies, and he’s allergic to peanut butter!”

Serena gasps, laughing through it. “Oh no! Poor baby!”

“I wasn’t a baby,” I growl, smirking at her.