"YOU NEVER KNOW WHAT will happen until it happens," my mother used to say.

I used to think that was a complete load of BS.

Well, that's not true. I still think it's an entirely foolish statement now. The only thing is, I almost understand it.

When I made my escape from New York, I had a lot of time to think. It was easy to think when one was in a jail cell for five days, even if they did get out on the account that one's deceased father had been friends with the Attorney General.

Well, not only had I been keeping an eye on the men Priscilla Martell had assigned to watch over her sister, but I was also thinking about my life. Despite my best efforts, I couldn't stop thinking about the rejection that Christina Martell had levied against me. It wasn't as if I'd never been rejected, but something about that had felt different.

It wasn't as if I'd seen it coming--well, I hadn't seen any of it coming. Which probably said more about my mother's superfluous statement than anything else.

No, from my father's death at my hands; to the desperation that I had felt at the thought of losing her... all of it had broken me, opening up some wound inside of me that I had been covering up for so long.

Not only covering, but ignoring. I'd realized that my life was more than I had thought it was. It was more than the same old. I'd realized that people were more than pawns, that she was more than I was. She was so much more than I would ever be, and I would never understand what she was. I'd never understood how she could have that peace, that joy, that calm even in the midst of the most turbulent times. The turmoil that I myself had put her through--it still hadn't even touched her.

Somehow, despite all the darkness, she was still a shining light.

And after she'd left me, I realized I didn't want to live in the darkness as I had for so long. I didn't want to go back to that half-life, that bare minimum of existence. I didn't want to spend my days stumbling through the dark, looking for some semblance or glimmer of brightness. I didn't want to remain here, as I was, shadowy and broken and drenched in blood.

So I had left. I had left the life I'd spent so long chasing, carving another path for myself. Or rather, turning back to the one I had always been meant to follow. The path that God wanted me to reach.

I ha liquidated the family business, and to my surprise, Sebastian hadn't objected. After all, he seemed to be eyeing up some kind of restaurant business in Queens, starting with a bakery, and me? Well, I was left with legitimizing what few industries we had. I went into luxury car dealerships since I had a few connections there from when we used to smuggle certain illicit substances in the vehicles.

The work was fine. It paid well, certainly. It gave me something to do with myself. But when it was all said and done, I had no reason to work. I had nothing to come home to. I was a single, free man, and I hated it. I needed a family. I needed a purpose. I needed something to work for, to provide for, to take care of.

I thought it might just be missing my family. I'd sent Allie away. My father was no longer with us. Sebastian was wandering the country for his new career in the food and hospitality industry. I had no one, no attachments except for Bianca, and she was busy with her husband and son.

It was loneliness that drove me to church, but it was God that drew me to the same church as Christina's mother. She was, for good reason, incredibly wary of me and all that I had done. I didn't bother trying to convince her that I was a good man. How could I convince her when I couldn't even convince myself of it?

No, all I did was sit in the pews and pray, and soak in God's presence. The very thing I had been forbidden for so long, thinking that all the people there would turn me away, and with good reason to. It was like drinking freshwater after ingesting nothing but the ocean for years. Finally, I had something real, something substantial, something that could sustain me, nourish me.

Eventually, I'd realized that it was about more than myself. It was about more than a relationship with God. It was about God. It had nothing to do with me, the sinner that I was, and everything to do with the Maker of the universe, the One who had formed me as He had formed all the stars. It wasn't about the hole in my heart or the chasm in my soul that led me to Him. It was about the awe that God could invoke, the fear, the deep reverence I had of Him. Of a God who was so just yet loving enough to let His Son die for me.

Christina's mother, Linda, talked to me first on one fateful Sunday. I recalled the first words she said to me. "Christina isn't here."

"I'm not looking for her." And that had been the honest truth. She had made her decision. I let her go, or at least I had tried to.

"Hmmph." She'd given me one of those disapproving looks that I'd seen so many times from the nonnas at Mass all those years ago. "Well, what are you looking for, then?"

I'd answered her simply, honestly. "God." Love.

Those could be one and the same, couldn't they?

After that, well, we hadn't really become friends, so out of one another's orbits as we were, but she had grown to tolerate me, even saving a seat for me on the old wooden pew as we listened to the preacher.

One day, completely out of the blue, she'd said to me, "I'm going to visit Christina in a few days."

Unsure of what to say, so trembling on the edge of fear and hope as I had been, I'd given a very eloquent response. "Oh."

"Would you like to come?" she said. "I'm taking some time off work to go to Paris."

"We could take my plane," I'd offered.

She shook her head. "You need to learn how to be a normal person. We'll fly economy class like everyone else."

Unable to convince her to indulge in any luxury, which I suspected she considered tainted by my prior line of work, I rode for far too many hours in a plane, legs cramping from the tiny seats that were simply not built to accommodate anyone over the height of five-foot-four. But I did it all for love. It didn't put a smile on my face, perhaps, but it kept a gladness in my heart that refused to dissipate.

"She's at the Eiffel tower," Linda had told me. "I'm going to head to the hotel first. You can meet her there."

I'd nodded, though I knew exactly where Christina was. "I'll see you soon, then."

She sighed. "Don't make me regret trusting you, Mr Cavalli."

I couldn't blame her for her suspicion. Instead, I found her protectiveness over her daughter to be assuring. "I won't, ma'am."

"YOU CAN DO THIS, Christina," I say to myself in the Shangri-La hotel's bathroom mirror. Then I made a face. I am talking to myself. I have never really thought of myself as one of the people who needed self-given pep talks, mostly preferring prayer and quiet conviction. But when one's—ex-boyfriend? almost fiancé? former kidnapper?—when Antonio Cavalli makes a reappearance in one's life, I need all the help I can get.

"Are you talking to yourself, Christina?" Thyra yells through the crack in the door.

"No!" I shout back. "I mean, yes, but only a little."

Just then, someone raps on the door.

I exit the bathroom, twisting the backing of my cubic zirconia earring into place. "Who is it?"

Thyra is usually in her dorm at Sorbonne, but while it was being renovated, she'd decided to stay with me. "I don't know."

To my amusement, she tries to pick up a table lamp, only to find it bolted to the table. "What are you doing?"

"Arming myself in case of an intruder," she says, as though her actions were completely obvious.

"With a table lamp?" I march toward the door and peeked through the peephole. A black and grey head of neatly bobbed hair... the familiar-looking pair of tiny silver hoop earrings... "It's my mom!"

I fling the door open. "What are you doing here?"

Instead of replying, she throws her arms around me. "I've missed you so much, Christina."

We hug for a few moments, and I breathe in the familiar smell of her shampoo. She seems relaxed, as though a burden was lifted off of her shoulders. The dark circles under her eyes have all but vanished, and she wears a bright coral top with white linen pants.

"Huh, and here I thought it might be the mafia guy again," says Thyra, leaning her hip against the console table. "Hi, Mrs. Martell. It's good to see you."

"Hello, Thyra. You look well. What mafia guy?" says my mother. Her tone seemed far too falsely innocent for my liking.

"We ran into Antonio Cavalli at the Eiffel Tower," explains Thyra. "Crazy coincidence, right?"

"Christina, I have something to tell you..." my mother takes my hands in hers.

"I know that you saw Antonio," I blurt out immediately. "And you two are... friends? Acquaintances?"

"We have a shared goal," she says smoothly.

"You do?" My eyebrows rise. "Did you come to Paris together?"

The thought of them sitting side by side on a commercial flight is laughable to me.

"Yes, he said he had some business to take care of before he came to meet us at the hotel for dinner," she explains. "How have you been? Tell me everything."

The three of us, me, my mom, and my best friend, sit on the couch and I tell her everything that's happened. From the private jet ride that I thought was going to kill me, to the time I've spent with Thyra, to today, when I talked to Antonio. By the time there's another knock on the door, I realize we've been talking so long that it's now dinnertime.

Something flutters inside of me—apprehension? Excitement? Anxiety? I haven't seen the man in well over a month, but it feels like so much has changed. For all I know, we could be completely different people now.

It's just dinner, Christina.

The room door swings open. I turn to face my fate.