“I want to do my damn job as her mother and protect her!  She doesn’t have to fucking like me, Billy, let her hate me.  I’m not here to be her friend I’m here to keep her safe - that’s the job.  MY job. You want to play good-guy-best-friend here rather than telling her that if she really wants to be part of this operation that low-ranking goombas don’t get to go traipsing off to far off countries chasing down their would-be girlfriends then fine … but don’t expect me to be happy about it. In fact, I’ll shut the hell up about it and be the mother sitting at home waiting for a regretful call from the local Don!”  she let out a huge harumph, clearly annoyed but trying desperately not to lose her cool utterly.

Billy shrugged. “Alright, do it your way. But you have to pick one. Either you’re the right hand, and she’s a goomba who has to listen, or you’re her mother and she’s a what, nineteen-year-old girl almost? Who doesn’t have to listen anymore. Take your pick of which pitfall you want to dive down. I’ll wait till you two are done, and then I’ll walk in…” he paused and shook his head. “I’ll roll in and put the pieces back together, and figure out how to fix it. That’s what I figured out how to do, fix shit. It’s all I’ve ever been really good at.”

“I’m both.  I’m her mother and I’m your hand or do I need to choose between wife and hand too?!?”  She glared at Billy. “And don’t play the martyr here. It’s not like you’ve run around behind me cleaning up all my messes these many years.  We’ve done everything together so far as I can tell - our wins and our failures - you’re upset with me for wanting to be a mother and the great irony of it all is that’s all you EVER wanted me to be from the moment we met.”  Tears filled her eyes. “I’ve buried everyone Billy I can’t start burying my babies!”

“Fuck you.”

Aurora stared at Billy through her tears.  “You’re not asking me to let them go and get married Billy.  You’re asking me to be silent and let them run off to hunt a man when it was ME who couldn’t bring herself to teach them how… I couldn’t bring myself to put guns and knives in their tiny hands Billy and now they’re paying the price for my fears!”

“Fuck them, I’m not talking about them right now. I’m talking about you. I can’t believe you would say that to me. I love you with every fiber of my being, and ever since the day we met I’ve been telling you, you’re stronger, and smarter, you’re faster, and more beautiful. You could do everything I do, but better. You’re the one who pushed me to be better, to tell me that I could do what I’m doing. So don’t you fucking sit there and tell me that all I ever wanted was for you to be a mother when all I ever fucking wanted was to dance with you!” He felt his voice cracking and his throat closing up. He ripped at his wheels and tried to turn himself in the small room, slamming instead into the couch he was next to. He stopped and sobbed then.

Aurora winced and reached a handout and put it onto his arm.  “That’s not how I meant it… not at all. Damn it, Billy, please stop.  Just… let me start over? Please.”

Billy shook his head. “We both fucked up and need to start over. I can’t though. I’m stuck Roar. I don’t get to start over. I have to live with this mistake.” He slammed his chair into the couch on purpose then. “And you know what the worst part of it all is Roar? It’s all my fault, for trying to do the right thing!” He reached down and flung the nail from his pocket into the middle of the floor.

Aurora narrowed her eyes at the sight of the nail.  “What are you talking about?” Her voice was airy and full of confusion and a small hint of horror at the thought that she might understand something of what he was saying.

Billy took a deep, calming breath before continuing. And then a second. A third. “Sarah.”

Fire flashed in Aurora’s eyes as she looked from the nail to Billy and back to the nail.  “What does she have to do with any of this?”  Her voice was dark and cold.

Billy looked up at his wife, at his Roar with a pleading look in his eyes. “We left a woman, an innocent woman to rot in a place worse than any prison I’ve ever seen. For fifteen years we left her there. It was time to get her out. And there was a good chance she had information that could lead us to some of Mattaranzi’s men in France.”

Aurora began shaking her head, denial already setting in.  “No… no.”

“So…” He continued, slowly. “I sent people to get her out, and had her brought here. I didn’t think anything of it. I thought she could stay, and I could talk with her. I thought there was a person there. Brigitte was visiting her after all, there had to be something right?” He shook his head. “I don’t know if I was right or wrong.”

Aurora covered her mouth perhaps to conceal sob or to literally hold in words she knew she didn’t mean, all the while her nostrils flared wildly, and her eyes became sharp like daggers.

“I do know that in the end, it doesn’t matter. What matters is, she was here because I chose to bring her here. And what’s done was done because of decisions I made.” He sighed. 

Aurora had seen many fights between her father and her mother in the years of her childhood in Philadelphia.  Isabella had been the sort to scream and throw things, a habit she’d picked up somewhere along the way. She’d give indignant huffs and lifting her chin, her nostrils would flare.  Aurora was keenly aware (if ashamed) to say that she could be a mirror of her mother’s rage, the Luciano rage they called it,  when she was so inclined. But never, not in the whole of her twenty-year marriage to Billy, had she ever found herself Gavin Byrne levels of angry.  Until today.

Aurora stared at Billy and said nothing.

Billy took another breath, knowing that Aurora was going to say nothing, and continued. “It’s how I know I’m going to walk again. I’ve never made a mistake I can’t fix.” He nodded, once, defiantly. “Tara thought you might be broken by this. Might take it too hard. I thought differently, and I told her I wouldn’t tell, but she knows deep down that I would. Because nothing, not a million daggers in the dark, can break us Aurora. We’re family.”

Family.

Tears poured out of Aurora’s eyes as her mind scrambled to wrap about the problem in front of her.  “It’s my job.” She whispered. “Hunting down men like this… Volkov, Mattaranzi… it should be me but I can’t.  I can’t sacrifice one daughter to save another, what mother could?” Her words were spoken softly, purposefully, but her eyes had not gone back to where the nail lay discarded on the floor.

Billy nodded, and wheeled closer to Aurora. He stopped halfway and leaned down to pick up the nail, and he put the end into the corner of his mouth as he wheeled the rest of the way over to her. “So don’t. Instead of sacrificing anyone, or anything, just don’t. We can keep Tara here, and I’ll go.”

Aurora shook her head and whispered, “I’m not as strong as the Old Wolf.  I can’t walk through this world a day without you Billy Mastrosimone, no matter what I promised you all those years ago… I … I can’t.  Not because I wouldn’t want to, but because I tried it once. I know how weak I really am and I haven’t gotten stronger with age and more funerals.  I wore widows black for you once, never ask it of me again.”

“If I send you, you … we’re not young anymore.  I could have died in Italy and not because of the baby, Billy… I’m getting old.  I’m slower than I was, I’m not a young lioness anymore. I’m not the Wolf’s pup. I’m an old bitch...”  She half chuckled at her own joke.

Billy nodded and smiled. “Good thing you’re not the only one who made a promise then. Old or not, I’m still Billy. Nobody has managed to stop me yet, some other monster won’t either.” He shook his head slightly. “But I get your point, and I won’t ever make you even think I’m not coming home. We’re in this together, and we will figure it out, together. One step… turn… inch, let’s go with inch, at a time.”

Aurora’s shoulders sunk.  “There really is only one way this ends, isn’t there?”

“I mean, I was looking forward to breakfast, but yeah, I could race you to the bedroom if you want.”

Aurora sighs, the ghost of a smirk tugs on the corner of her lip.  “The girls can go… conditional upon the fact that they swear to me that the protection of each other comes before every other objective on the mission.  They will both do everything they can to come back to us. No heroics or stupidity. AND they call home every day. They let us help with money, resources, allies… Billy, I mean it.  Nothing we or my family has ever earned or incurred in debts is withheld. Nothing is sacred. All in. Yes?”

Billy nodded. “Of course, are you crazy? That’s my petit ange, and my Taa. Those are my little girls. I mean, there’s always Bella too, but she’s crazy.”

Aurora couldn’t help but chuckle and then sigh a ragged sigh, “When did we get here?  How… how did we go from being those two stupid kids begging my parents to let us make out in the car to … this?”

Billy reached out and took Aurora by the waist. “I’m not sure exactly how I got here, but I know how you did.” He picked her up then and held her above his head. “You flew.” And he tossed her.

“Oh God…” Jack muttered before yelling up the stairs, “WE’RE NOT GOING TO BREAKFAST YET I THINK THEY’RE GONNA TRY TO MAKE ANOTHER BABY.”

Isabella yelled from somewhere upstairs, “IDIOT YOU CAN’T DO THAT WHEN YOU ALREADY HAVE ONE - IT’S NOT LIKE BASEBALL WITH A BABY ON DECK!”

“WILL YOU GUYS QUIT YELLING?!?”  Brigitte screamed. “I’M TRYING TO THINK OF WHAT TO PACK!”

Gavin came into the room as Rora was finishing kissing Billy.  “Nah, they’re not doing that.” He put a hand on Jack’s shoulders and pushed him away from the room.  “COME ON GUYS I’M HUNGRY!” Gavin yelled up the stairs.

Tara was first down followed by Isabella, Malcolm and Brigitte shooing the lot of them.  

“We’re going to need to take two cars.”  Aurora said to Billy realizing the number of children they’d somehow managed to have in their home.  “I blame you for all these blessings, Mister.” She stuck her tongue out at Billy and stood up from his lap.

Billy nodded. “I call the dusen… uh… Brigitte is going to drive her father in the Duesenberg.” He turned then and looked to Tara, tossing her the nail. “Your mother knows.” And with a smile, he patted his lap and looked to Brigitte. “Come on kid, I’ll give you a lift to the garage.”