Chapter 50
"Luca," Sol said, leaning closer, voice urgent now. "Listen to me. You told me yourself, she fought for years to keep you in that family. She visited you constantly, called you all the time, until she just suddenly stopped. That doesn't sound like someone who wanted to hurt you. That sounds like someone who cares about you deeply, and something else happened to explain the silence."
"Or maybe she just finally realized what everyone else already knew," Luca said, tears beginning to slip silently down his bruised, bandaged face now. "That I'm not actually worth the trouble. That I never really belonged with that family at all. I was just some charity case she took pity on, and eventually even she got tired of pretending otherwise."
"That's not true," Sol said firmly, though he
