Chapter 11 - THE MAN NERO FINALLY TRUSTED AGAIN
My first date with Sienna lasted four hours.
I had planned ninety minutes.
She laughed when I admitted that.
“You scheduled me?”
“I schedule everything.”
“That’s disturbing.”
“It’s efficient.”
“You need help.”
“I’m receiving it.”
Dinner became coffee.
Coffee became a walk.
No bodyguards visible.
Dana Brooks nearly had an aneurysm but obeyed.
Sienna talked about Mateo.
That surprised me.
Not constantly.
Not as comparison.
As part of her life.
“He would have hated this restaurant.”
“Why?”
“Tiny portions.”
I smiled.
“He sounds reasonable.”
“He was.”
No jealousy.
That surprised me too.
I had once believed loving a widow meant competing with a dead man.
Now I understood love did not operate through vacancy.
Mateo had a place.
If I ever earned one, it would be different.
Sienna asked about my father.
I told her more than I expected.
Sebastian was demanding.
Funny privately.
Terrible cook.
Loved Nero immediately.
Failed Matteo by forgiving without limits.
Failed me by confusing responsibility with affection.
Loved both of us anyway.
People could be complicated without becoming innocent.
Our second date happened three weeks later.
Sienna decided the pace.
Good.
Elsie found out after date four.
She stared at us.
“You did dinner without me?”
“Yes.”
“Rude.”
Sienna covered a smile.
Elsie turned to Nero.
“They rude.”
Nero sneezed.
“See?”
I nodded.
“Compelling testimony.”
A year passed.
Not dramatically.
That was the gift.
Sienna’s company expanded.
Nero aged.
My businesses stabilized.
The Romano name changed publicly.
Romano Holdings sold several assets tied too closely to the old world.
We became boring.
Financial press called it “strategic de-risking.”
I called it sleeping better.
I also testified regarding several ledger investigations.
Some people I once knew went to prison.
Some cases lacked enough evidence.
Truth did not guarantee perfect outcomes.
Only better records.
Matteo wrote me letters.
I ignored the first six.
Opened the seventh.
Alessio,
I keep thinking about Mom asking you to protect me.
For years I hated her for saying it.
Now I think maybe she knew what I could become when afraid.
I stopped.
No.
I refused to let him turn my mother into prophecy.
I continued.
I don’t expect forgiveness.
I want you to know I remember Nero as a puppy sleeping under your bed.
I stared.
He had helped name him.
We were kids.
Then:
Tell Sienna I am sorry about Mateo.
Tell Elsie I am sorry I frightened her.
I did not pass those messages.
His apology belonged to him.
Sienna and Elsie did not owe reception.
I wrote one sentence back.
Accountability is what you do with the years you have left.
No “brother.”
No affection.
No cruelty.
That was enough.
Nero’s health worsened the following winter.
Arthritis.
Heart murmur.
Old age.
He was thirteen.
Dr. Reyes warned me.
“Large dogs don’t get forever.”
I hated that sentence.
Elsie was six now.
Old enough to understand.
She sat beside Nero on the floor.
“Is he dying?”
Sienna looked at me.
I answered.
“Someday soon.”
Elsie cried.
Nero licked her face.
“Can’t doctor fix?”
“No.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s very old.”
“I told you old is bad.”
I almost laughed through tears.
We made his final months gentle.
No stairs.
Warm beds.
Steak occasionally despite Dr. Reyes’s disapproval.
Elsie read him children’s books.
Nero hated literature but tolerated her.
One cold March morning, he could not stand.
I carried him into the greenhouse.
The renovated one.
Sunlight.
Plants.
Elsie came.
Sienna beside her.
Dr. Reyes examined him.
Then looked at me.
Time.
My chest broke.
Nero had stayed beside me through my father’s death.
Matteo’s betrayal.
Gunfire.
Fire.
Years of fear.
Then a three-year-old child taught him trust again.
I did not want his last moment to be clinical.
We sat on blankets.
Elsie held his head in her lap.
Same position as the courtyard years earlier.
“You’re warm now,” she whispered.
Sienna cried silently.
I placed one hand on Nero’s chest.
“Good boy.”
His eyes opened.
Looked at me.
Then Elsie.
His tail moved once.
Dr. Reyes helped him go peacefully.
No fear.
No pain.
Afterward, Elsie would not release him for several minutes.
Nobody rushed her.
We buried Nero beneath an old oak behind the greenhouse.
Not in some grand memorial.
Just stone.
**NERO
LOYAL BEFORE WE DESERVED IT**
Elsie chose the second line.
I approved.
For weeks the estate felt empty.
I still looked toward doors expecting him.
Sienna understood.
One evening she came to my apartment with dinner.
No date.
No performance.
We ate.
Then she sat beside me.
“You okay?”
“No.”
“Good answer.”
I looked at her.
“I miss him.”
“I know.”
“I keep thinking I should have noticed earlier.”
“The device?”
“Yes.”
“Nero hid pain.”
“I knew him ten years.”
“And Matteo had people drugging him.”
I looked away.
Sienna continued:
“You are allowed to regret without turning regret into ownership of every bad thing.”
She had become good at this.
“Therapy?”
“Expensive.”
I laughed.
Then she took my hand.
That simple.
Months later, we returned to Nero’s grave with Elsie.
She placed the original white laundry cloth beneath the stone.
Sienna frowned.
“You kept that?”
Elsie nodded.
“Friend cloth.”
Then she looked at me.
“Nero found bad people.”
“Yes.”
“No.”
She frowned.
“I found bad button.”
I smiled.
“Yes.”
“Nero found me.”
That stopped me.
“What?”
“He put head on me.”
Sienna’s eyes filled.
Elsie continued:
“He picked me.”
Children had ways of saying profound things accidentally.
Nero chose her.
Then she chose him.
That trust uncovered everything.
Elsie ran toward the greenhouse.
Sienna stayed.
I looked at her.
“I love you.”
She froze.
I had not planned it.
Good.
Some words should not arrive through scheduling.
Her eyes filled.
“You picked a dog grave.”
“I’m very romantic.”
She laughed through tears.
Then:
“I love you too.”
I kissed her.
Slowly.
May you like
No audience except one dead dog and probably six security cameras Dana refused to remove.
It was enough.
