AN- Hey all. Thanks for your reviews. You've been asking good questions and making great suggestions. I'm not one for individual "shout outs," but please do know I appreciate your comments. (Even if I don't seem to act on them right away!) All things will be revealed in time.

Chapter 9.

Dom's P.O.V.

Letty came back to the house & helped Berto get ready for bed. He asked her to stay, like he had every night since he arrived.

She hesitated.

She always does, but this time she really hesitated.

When she finally caved, she told him that this really was the last night she'd be staying over. He was a big boy now, she said.

And after tomorrow, things would be different.

Her friend David was coming home tomorrow, so she was going to have to spend some time with him too.

I stood in the doorway to Berto's room and watched this… this nightmare unfold in front of me.

Berto didn't seem to catch the difference in her answer. But I did.

I knew who David was of course. Mia had mentioned him more than once.

Somehow I'd assumed it wasn't as serious as Mia seemed to think since Letty hadn't mentioned him at all since she'd got here. He'd gone from being this ghost who haunted my thoughts of Letti, to less than that- to nothing. He wasn't real. I'd forgotten about him, made him disappear from this new life we had together.

He was too fucking real now.

DANGER! DANGER! DANGER! The blood roared through my brain. I couldn't think, couldn't hear, couldn't breathe.

All I saw was her.

She was kneeling next to Berto's bed, tucking him in.

Tucking MY son in to his bed in MY house.

No- that's not right. Our son in Our house.

She'd barely walked past me when I pounced.

"You're going to break his heart Alicia. Is this David worth it?" I growl, unable to keep the bitterness out of my voice.

"Jesus!" She jumped and covered her mouth. "You fucking startled me Dominic." She glares at me as her hand moves from her mouth to her chest.

Good. I'm glad she's scared. Now I'm not the only one.

She grabs my hand and drags me to the living room before she says another word.

She doesn't look at me as she starts to pace the floor. "You don't get to make me feel guilty about spending time with my boyfriend, Dominic."

I stare at her, watching her run her hands through her hair. This scene is oddly and impossibly familiar, but I know we haven't been here like this before. Our fights were always explosive back then. Our lives were explosive.

But the pain from our past is still with us. We need not have had this moment before to have lived through this pain before.

Hard words force themselves to be spoken in my voice. "We have a chance here Letty. Are you going to push aside the possibility this family, the one we were supposed to have? Just so you can be with some gringo lawyer?"

She looks at me and flares her nose. "What, and you're Mister Mexican now? You're pretty damn gringo yourself Dominic To-ret-to."

I just stare at her, crossing my arms over my chest. For better or worse, she's always been able to read my face. Even all these years later, I don't have to say anything for her to know what I'm thinking.

She stops pacing and sits on the arm of the couch. Her knees are bouncing up and down, filled with nervous energy. "Don't. No. David is my chance to have a family. David and I are the same. My life is different now, you made sure of that, remember? We don't have a child together Dominic. Roberto is your son. Not mine. "

"That's only because you won't let him be yours." I sit on the coffee table, making sure to place myself directly in front of her. "This is our second chance Mira."

"No." She folds her arms across her chest just as I had a moment earlier. She looks away, out the window.

That ghost is there, visible on her face, when she speaks again.

Three little words. That's all it takes to almost bring me to my knees.

"I love him."

And she means it. I can tell.

"We love you," I say desperately. If I reach for her now, will she pull away?

"He lets me lead my own life Dominic. He doesn't impose his world on mine." She looks into my eyes, trying to make me understand. "David puts me first, Dominic. You never did that."

"That's not true!" I shout as I jump to my feet.

She flinches back, surprised. "Shh!" She cuts me off, putting a hand forcefully on my arm. "You'll scare him." She looks upstairs, toward my son's room, as if it's the sleeping boy who's afraid right now and not her.

Shit. I didn't mean to scare you this time Letty. I love you. I've loved you since the day you turned 16. Can't you see that?

I take a deep breath and try to steady myself before I speak. Try to let her steady herself too so she'll be able to listen to what it is that I need to say.

"That's not true," I say again, softer. "I've put you first for the last six fucking years."

"Bull shit." She shakes her head in disbelief and watches me take my seat again. "I wasn't even here. How'd you put me first if we weren't even together?"

"Where would you be now if we had been?" I put my head in my hands and stare at the floor. "Who would you be?" Rubbing my temple, I look back up at her. "You wouldn't be Alicia Rodriguez, recent law school graduate and associate at Trecker and Butterworth's."

"So you're saying you gave me this life, the one I have now? That's how you put me first?" She shakes her head again. "I was happy with you Dom. I was happy with who I was then."

"You were getting restless." We stare at each other, knowing it's true. "If you were so happy with who you were Letty, you wouldn't have changed. You wouldn't have become who you are now."

She swallows, closing her eyes for a moment. I watch her struggle with what I've just said. "That's not fair. We were all… unsettled after the heists."

"If life were fair," I say, looking her dead in the eye, "it would have been me that died. Not Jesse or the baby." My words startle her. My voice is tired as I add, "You know it's true, and don't you fucking deny it."

"Jesus Dominic." She looks green. "Christ. You didn't shoot Jesse, you had nothing to do with that."

"But I did have something to do with you loosing her."

"We don't even know for sure it was a girl Dominic. I wasn't even sure I was pregnant until I miscarried." She cracks all of the knuckles on both her hands, then cracks her back and her neck. Obviously this conversation isn't making her uncomfortable at all.

"I knew." Her look says she doesn't believe me.

"I knew your body Letty. You'd put on just a little weight, but it was all there." I put my hand on my lower abdomen. "You were late. In those last few days, the smell of beer made you gag. All the signs were there."

"Then why-"

"Because I thought it was safe. It was the last time. We were going to retire to Mexico and raise our family. I had it all figured out." I shake my head and laugh.

She looks like I hit her. The one sin I didn't commit against her. I never used my hands. Just everything else I had.

"I sent you away because you deserved better than me."

"But now that I've found it, you don't want me to have it?"

"David isn't better than me. He's just some blond trust fund bitch who uses two dollar words like they're going out of style," I spit. "David is shit, and maybe I'm still a shit too. But Roberto is better."

"You think you can just call me after all this time and offer Roberto as a substitute for what we lost?" The old Letty would have had fire in her voice when she asked me this. Alicia sounds more like Mia- more hurt than weak.

"If I really thought it was that simple to replace one child lost with another, I would have done it six years ago." I take her hand and try to make her feel what I'm feeling using sheer will power.

"You sent me away." Her voice cracks, but she holds my gaze.

"I did it because I loved you. I don't know much, but I knew you were better than all that Bonnie and Clyde shit we were pulling." I rub her palm and smile weakly. "But I can offer you an Ozzie and Harriet kind of life now."

She laughs a little and lets me wipe the tears off her cheek.

"I always thought it would be you and me," she admits softly.

"It can still be you and me." I squeeze her hand. All my cards are on the table.

"What would you have done if Roberto hadn't come along?"

I swallow hard. "Waited and kept on making deals with God till that day came where you either walked through that door on your own or He gave me a reason to pull you back through it."

"You made deals with God? You never came to Mass with me after your father died. You said you'd never go again."

"Things change," I say as I got down on my knees and put my hands together. "I used to do this every night and every morning you know? Since the day you left."

I bow my head and say the words that were all too familiar. "Dear God, let her be happy. I've done wrong and I know I don't deserve her, but I'm trying now. I swear I'll keep trying to do right and fix the things I've done in Your eyes and hers till the day I die. So one day, maybe if you serious about that redemption thing, you'll send her back to me."

I make the sign of the cross and look up at her.

Tears are streaming from her eyes. She wipes her face from her forehead to her chin, making a f fist slowly and knocking her forehead twice. "You think it worked? You think He was listening to you?"

I giver her that look that used to melt her. "You're here. Roberto's here."

She closes her eyes and balls her hands again placing one on each temple and squeezing them together as if she's trying to contain all the thoughts I know must be flying through her head.

"I haven't seen you in six years," she says in a ragged voice.

"If it were over you would have told me to go to hell already Letty." I'm still on my knees in front of her now. Six years ago this would never have happened but since then things have changed.

She sucks in air and holds her breath so long I begin to worry.

"Baby- please. Talk to me," I beg.

She sobs and shakes her head.

"Mira…" I reach out and stroke her face but she won't have any of it.

She slaps my hand away. "No!"