Remi Meets Father
Remi's POV
The house didn’t look like what I imagined a mafia don would live in. It was smaller, and kinda dull, old stone and ivy-covered walls that blended into the hills like it had always been part of the land. It felt... still. Like the past was holding its breath inside.
I knocked.
No answer.
I bit my lips, I hope aunt Victoria was right.
I knocked again, still no one answered. I sighed.
I was about to turn back when the door creaked open. A man stood there, maybe in his late sixties, salt-and-pepper hair with grey streaks neatly combed back, a dark sweater rolled up at the sleeves. His face was clean-shaven, stern, but not unkind. Familiar, in a way that made something in my chest tighten.
He looked at me for a long beat.
Then he said, “I see you finally found your way to me.”
My eyes widened. “You…you know me?”
He scoffed. “You carry her face.”
“Harper?” I asked, voice barely steady.
He nodded once and opened the door wider. “Come in.”
I was a bit nervous, but I had to try to know him.
The inside was warm. Not homely, exactly—more like someone had paid an interior designer and then ignored it for twenty years—but it didn’t feel dangerous. I didn't see guns or knives.
But anything is possible.
He led me to the sitting room. A fire crackled softly in the hearth. There was a tray on the table—tea, two cups already poured.
“I figured you’d come eventually,” he said, easing into the chair across from me.
I sat down slowly. My hands were cold.
“You knew?”
He gave a short nod. “Victoria reached out weeks ago. Told me... everything. I almost told her to go to hell. But then she said your name.” He gave a tired smile. “Remi. The name your mother wanted. The one I never got to say out loud.”
I stayed silent. I didn’t trust my voice yet.
He reached for his cup, took a sip, then gestured to mine. “It’s not poisoned, if that’s what you’re thinking.”
“I wasn’t,” I lied.
He watched me for a second. “She loved you, you know. Harper. She did what she thought was best. Hated herself for it.”
“She said you were dangerous,” I said quietly.
He let out a soft laugh. “She wasn’t wrong.”
A pause stretched between us.
“But I’m old now,” he added, eyes softening. “And tired. Most of the people who feared me are gone or buried under deals they couldn't keep. I’m not the same man she ran from.”
I stared at him. At the creases around his eyes. The strength still in his posture. The war behind his silence.
“Then why are you still hiding?” I asked.
He leaned back. “Because men like me don’t get to walk around in the light.”
I wanted to believe him. Wanted to think he was just a man who’d made bad choices in love, in loyalty.
But I’d seen enough of the world to know better.
I picked up the cup. Held it, but didn’t drink.
He studied me again. “You’re strong. I can tell. She was afraid you’d become me.”
“She said you used protection,” I murmured, not meeting his gaze. “That she lied. Said I wasn’t yours.”
He was quiet for a long moment.
“I knew,” he said finally. “The moment I saw your photo. I didn’t need a test. I knew.”
The room seemed to shift slightly, the weight of everything we weren’t saying pressing harder.
I set the cup down.
He looked at me again, like he already sensed where this was going.
I drew in a shaky breath. “You knew that you were my father, why didn't you reach out?”
His expression didn’t change.
But the warmth in his eyes vanished.
He leaned back slowly, the old wooden chair creaking under him, and chuckled—but it wasn’t the kind that made you feel safe.
“Funny questions. Just like your mother, the first time we met she asked if I was in the mafia when it was damn obvious. You already know the answer. So…why are you asking?”
And just like that, the version of him that felt like a nice old man? Gone. His shoulders straightened. His voice lost the soft cadence. He looked sharper now. Sharper and colder.
“What do you want, Remi?” he asked.
I blinked. “I don’t know. I guess I just thought...”
He cut me off. “Thought what? That I’d open my arms and call you my little girl?”
I swallowed hard. “You don’t want me?”
He looked at me, almost pitying. “It’s not that. You think I haven’t kept tabs on you? I know you, Remi. I watched you through college. I know about the twins. Your marriage. Your divorce. That ridiculous scandal with the Vaughns. I know everything.”
I stared. “Then why... why did you never come for me?”
He sighed and looked away, jaw tightening. “Because it’s not what your mother wanted.”
“She was scared,” I said, voice cracking. “She thought you were dangerous, but she is gone and I was alone.”
“She was right,” he said, without a hint of shame. “Back then? I was a dangerous man. A man with enemies. A man who bled to protect what he built. The De Luca name meant something—and it came with a cost. I tried to keep you both safe, but in the end, she ran. And I let her.”
His eyes dimmed with something like regret.
“After she left, I had a choice. I could keep searching for you. Drag you into the world she feared. Or I could disappear.”
“Disappear?” I repeated.
He nodded. “I dismantled everything. The shipping front. The black market arms deals. The offshore accounts. Every empire I built—gone. I sold it all. Quietly. Carefully. And became a ghost. Because I loved her. And I knew the only way to protect her—and you—was to erase myself from that life.”
My heart twisted. “So this… this house, this life—it’s all because of us?”
He looked at the fireplace, flickering low. “It’s because I didn’t want any more blood on my hands. I still had people loyal to me. I still had power. But for what? To scare children? To destroy the families of men who slighted me? I had nothing left to fight for.”
I didn’t know what to say. There was grief inside me. But there was gratitude too. Because maybe I wasn’t abandoned. Maybe I was hidden. Protected. Even loved.
I reached for my cup. My hand was trembling slightly.
“You could’ve still written,” I whispered. “Something. Anything.”
“And put a target on your back?” he asked. “Remi, I still had enemies long after I vanished. The old world doesn’t forget. Even now—there are eyes. Waiting. Listening.”
A silence fell between us again.
Then he exhaled heavily and looked straight at me.
“You don’t need me in your life, Remi.”
I flinched. “You don’t get to decide that.”
He chuckled again, this time a little softer. “You have a good man with you. Rowan isn't it? Even if he is a scumbag, he protects you.And those twins of yours? I saw the photos. You built a life.”
I shook my head. “You don’t know everything. Rowan and I—we’ve been through hell.”
“And you’re still breathing,” he said calmly. “That says a lot more than you think.”
Then his face twisted slightly, amusement tugging at his mouth.
“Though I’ll question your choices till the day I die, going back to that scumbag who treated you like death warmed over.”
“He changed,” I said, defensively.
“People like him don’t change. They just learn new tactics and you should too, holding him at arms length.”
“You don’t even know him.”
He raised a brow. “I don’t need to. I know men. And I know what desperation does to the proud.”
I narrowed my eyes, but I didn’t argue further.
He stood and picked up my now-cold tea, placing it on the tray.
“Still,” he said, glancing over his shoulder, “You don’t need me. You’ve already survived the kind of life I never wanted for you. And you did it without me.”
I bit the inside of my cheek.
He turned to me fully.
“You came here for answers. You got them. But you won’t get redemption. Or
some neat little reunion. This isn’t that kind of story.”
I stood. “And what if I still want a relationship?”
He smiled, eyes tired. “Then that’s your mistake to make.”
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