The Don's Secret Heir

Chapter 11: Before I Was Anyone

Valentina Pov

Years later

The kitchen was warm and smelled like toast. The coffee machine made a final click-clack sound, signaling it was done. I leaned against the counter, enjoying the quiet for just a second before the storm started.

I had been up since five. Not because Matteo woke me, but because my brain wouldn't stop. The envelope had sat on the counter all night. I had walked past it four times before bed and twice more this morning. I had made coffee I didn't drink. I had read three lines of a contract I already knew by heart. I was good at keeping busy.

I had learned that trick a long time ago, in a small room in Castelmare with a broken drawer handle and a window that looked at a wall. Stay busy. Don't let the quiet get too loud.

“Mamma! You can’t catch me! I’m the fastest boat in the world!”

Matteo zoomed into the kitchen. He wasn't wearing his backpack. He wasn't wearing his jacket. In fact, he was only wearing one sock. He did a sharp turn around the kitchen island, his little feet sliding on the tile.

“Oh, really?” I set my mug down. “Well, this is the Mamma-Monster, and she catches every boat that doesn't have its shoes on!”

I lunged forward, and Matteo let out a high-pitched squeal of delight. He scrambled under the kitchen table.

“You’re too slow!” he shouted, poking his head out from under the tablecloth.

“We’ll see about that!” I crawled after him, making silly growling noises. We circled the table twice. I finally managed to grab his ankle, and he fell into a pile of giggles on the rug. “Gotcha! Now, where is your other sock, Captain?”

“The dog took it,” he said, breathless and grinning.

“We don’t have a dog, Matteo.” He thought about this very seriously. "Can we get one?"

"No."

"Then it was probably the ghost." He nodded like this was the only logical conclusion. I pressed my lips together so I wouldn't laugh. “Oh. Then... a ghost took it?”

I rolled my eyes and pulled him up. “Go. Find the sock. Find the backpack. Or the Mamma-Monster will tickle you until you turn into a frog.”

He scrambled away, laughing. Just as I stood up, my phone began to vibrate on the counter. It was Edoardo.

“Valentina,” he said as soon as I answered. He sounded like he had already had four espressos. “Tell me you are looking at the guest list I sent. Tell me you are thinking about the green dress. The one that says ‘I am the boss and I own this city.’”

“I am looking at a five-year-old with one sock, Edoardo,” I said, pinning the phone between my shoulder and ear as I started clearing the breakfast plates. “The city will have to wait.”

There was a crash from the hallway. "I'm fine!" Matteo called out before I could say anything. I closed my eyes for one second. "Edoardo," I said, "hold on." I walked to the doorway. He was fine. He had just knocked over his own shoes.

“The city waits for no one! Especially not the Riccis,” Edoardo countered. “Antonio Ferretti called me this morning. He’s already asking if we’re coming. This is the big one, Valentina. If we play this right, NOIR DONNA won't just be a brand; it’ll be an empire.”

“I know, Edoardo. I’ll be there. One hour, remember?”

“And forty minutes of secret planning, I know your tricks,” he joked. “Just don't be late. I’ll pick you up at seven. Wear the green. It’s a power color!”

“Goodbye, Edoardo.”

I hung up and sighed. I stood there holding the phone for a moment after the call ended. Edoardo meant well. He always meant well. He had believed in NOIR DONNA before I had the money to believe in it myself.

He had sat across from me at a folding table in my first tiny apartment, looking at sketches I had drawn on the back of grocery receipts, and said, "This is something. This is really something."

I had cried in the bathroom after he left. Not because I was sad, but because someone had finally seen what I saw. That was three years ago. Now Antonio Ferretti was asking if we were coming.

The white envelope was still there, sitting near the fruit bowl. It looked so small, but it felt like a mountain. I reached out and touched the thick paper. My name, Valentina Ricci, was written in perfect, dark ink.

“Mamma! I found it!”

Matteo came skidding back into the room. He was wearing his backpack, his jacket, and, thankfully, both socks. But he had also put on a pair of oversized dinosaur sunglasses that covered half his face.

“I’m ready,” he said, standing very still. “But the ghost said I have to wear these to school so the frogs don't recognize me.”

I looked at him, the mismatched socks, the dinosaur glasses, and the bright yellow backpack. I couldn't help it. I started to laugh. The heavy feeling in my chest from Edoardo’s call started to lift.

“The frogs are going to be very confused,” I said, kneeling to zip up his jacket. “But you look like a very cool secret agent.”

“I am,” he whispered. “Don’t tell the teacher.”

“It’s our secret.” He reached up and adjusted his dinosaur glasses very seriously, like a real agent checking his equipment.

I watched him and felt something pull tight in my chest. He looked so much like himself. Not like Marco, not like anyone else. Just entirely, completely Matteo.

I had been so afraid, in those early months, that I wouldn't know how to do this, that I would be too hard, too tired, too broken to be what he needed. Instead, I had learned how to chase imaginary boats before seven in the morning. You figure it out. You always figure it out.

I stood up and took one last look at the envelope. I didn't open it. I didn't need to. I knew that whatever was inside, I had worked hard to get here. I wasn't the scared girl from the bus anymore.

That girl had counted coins on a night bus to Sicily and prayed the address on the paper was real. She would not have believed this kitchen, this child, this life. I was glad she couldn't see me yet. She needed to survive first.

I was a mother, a business owner, and apparently, an expert at catching imaginary boats.

“Let’s go, Secret Agent,” I said, grabbing my keys.

We walked out the door, and as Matteo hopped down the steps, he stopped and turned around. “Mamma? If the frogs ask for my name, should I tell them I’m Matteo or should I give a fake name?”

I smiled, ruffling his hair. “Tell them you’re Matteo. It’s a great name. And you’re a great boy.”

“Okay,” he said, satisfied. He grabbed my hand, and we walked toward the car.