Mafia Legacy

Chapter Twenty Six-Luca/Charlotte

Luca

I had read through the papers Charlotte brought me no less than a hundred times. I was pretty sure at this point I had the memorized. It'd been two days since she was here and I'd tried many times to call her, but had gotten no response. I wanted to believe this wasn't true, but the longer we went without speaking, the more I was starting to believe her.

Charlotte was the missing piece in my soul. My moral compass. My entire world began and ended with her. From the moment we met, we had been so strongly connected that I didn't think there was anything that could pull us apart. Especially after all the hell we'd gone through over the last 20 years. She had always been too good for me, and deserved much more out of life than I could give her. She didn't deserve the things I had put her through over the years, and this was just one of them. I tried my best to give her everything I could. The house, the money, the cars, the trips. Charlotte never cared about that, though. She cared about me and our family and having an honest relationship and someone she could count on. Even after all this time, the lies I told her were still coming back to haunt me.

I hadn't been able to give her the honesty that she had always wanted, but maybe I could do this last thing for her. I could set her free and let her move on.

I nearly broke thinking about what this would do to our children. They were already going through so much with my arrest and the trial, and this would only add to it. I had no one to blame but myself, though. Charlotte was doing the very best she could to protect our kids, and I could never fault her for that. I may not like what she was doing, but it was always with the best of intentions to keep our children safe. It was why she had left with Layla all those years ago. Even though I hated it, I could understand it.

They were resilient, and they would bounce back from this. Whatever happened, they would be able to move forward and build their own lives, hopefully far away from all this bullshit. Charlotte would too. She was so much stronger than she gave herself credit for. It was me that I was worried about. Without my family, nothing really mattered. If I didn't have them to go home to, what was even the point of getting out of this place? Maybe this was the hell on earth that I deserved.

Through clenched teeth and tears in my eyes, I signed the last page of the divorce packet and set it on the edge of the table. I'd give it to a guard when they came by later. It wasn't a decision I had taken lightly. It had been the only thing on my mind for days. I thought about the options over and over again, but it would just put her through more hell. Maybe in my own twisted way, this was how I could save her. As painful as this was for me, maybe I deserved it. If this would make her happy, I could take the brunt of it.

My cell door started opening, and there was a guard standing there. Part of me hoped he was taking me to get beaten by some other inmates again. Like I needed the physical pain to distract me from what I was feeling mentally. I had never been lower in my entire life.

"Come on, Catalano. You've got a visitor."

Was Charlotte here? Had she come back? Was she rethinking all of this? I grabbed the folder off of the table and followed him down the hall.

Instead of seeing Charlotte at a table waiting for me, though, it was Whitaker. He got a wry smile on his face when he saw me. The guard took me to the table and forced me to sit down.

"Hello Luca." His smug smile was disgusting.

"What do you want?" I asked, gritting my teeth.

"I'm here to give you another shot to tell me the truth. I hear things are rough at home and thought you might want to reconsider."

How the fuck had he found out about that? It only enraged me more that he knew Charlotte and I were having problems. He had to have been listening when she was here the other day.