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When I said nothing, Father Charlie went on, “When I heard of her passing, I… it came as a shock to me. She was so lively, so full of faith and love. She deserved the world. It truly isn’t fair sometimes what life throws at us.”
Whether or not he’d say that about any member of this church, I didn’t know, and I didn’t care. What I did care about, in that moment, was the sincerity in his tone, how serious and thoughtful he appeared sitting beside me.
I believed him. I believed every single word he spoke, and that wasn’t something I could say about other men in my life.
I said something then I’d never voiced in my whole life, but it was something I’d caught myself wondering on more than one occasion: “I wonder why she never left my father.”
After all, if she would’ve left, maybe she could’ve taken me with her. Surely she could’ve gone somewhere, anywhere, where it would’ve been too much of a hassle for my father to track us down and drag us back to him.
Maybe she’d still be alive. Maybe I could’ve had a normal life. Maybe a forty-something-year-old man wouldn’t have taken my virginity and made me dread the thought of ever having a husband of my own.
Father Charlie was slow in saying, “From what I recall, she didn’t have family other than your father. She… didn’t have anywhere else to go. She wanted a good life for you, and she believed your father’s money would provide it.”
I knew what he wasn’t saying, though: money did not always provide happiness. Just look at me. Look at what he did to me not too long ago. He fucking sold me for a night, and he didn’t care. He didn’t give a shit about the scars inside, how I would forever hate myself for it.
Miguel Santos was a terrible human being and a worse father, and I hated him.
“I know you are skeptical about all of this,” Father Charlie whispered, “but your mother found solace here. I’m glad you came to me when you did, Giselle. If there is only one person I can save in this world, I want it to be you.”
As he spoke, as I gazed into his eyes, I swore I saw the corners grow watery. The emotion in his voice almost made me tear up—and I had no idea why. But I was starting to understand why my mother came here so often. It wasn’t the religion or the services. No.
It was for Father Charlie.
I wanted to hug the man, as stupid as it sounded. I wanted to lean into him and close my eyes, listen to his calm, soothing voice wash over me as he told me everything would be all right.
But I didn’t. All I did was look away and mutter under my breath, “I’m not worth being saved.” And as sad and pathetic as it was, I genuinely believed it. The things my father trained into me, the things I knew how to do—kill a man with a pencil, for instance—separated me from the rest.
And that said nothing about the things I thought about. Killing my father, first and foremost. Someone with murder in their heart and on their mind wasn’t worth saving.
“Everyone is worth saving, child, even you.” Father Charlie almost stood, but he hesitated, and even though I wasn’t looking at him, I could feel his wizened eyes on me. “Especially you.” And then he got up and wandered off, to take off his robes and clean up after the mass.
It never occurred to me what he meant, not until it was too late.
Really, things hit a little different now that I knew he was my real father.
I stood in the shower, hot water pelting my head at a temperature that might be uncomfortable for some. It was fine for me. I could hardly feel it. Everything felt so… different. Off, almost. Like I wasn’t really in my body. Not in control. Just a passenger watching time tick by.
Damian—or Atlas, I supposed—wanted my help in taking my father down. My father, who’d hired some Greenback Serpents to kill Father Charlie and ransack the church. My father, who’d raped me and left me for dead, thinking the Serpents were going to kill me the moment they laid their hands on me.
No, not my father, because my real father was dead. Miguel. Miguel fucking Santos was not my father. He never was. Everything in my life had been a lie, and I’d never questioned it.
How stupid was I?
It was like my mind had too much to think about, too many warring memories in my head I couldn’t think straight. I angled my head down and stared at my hands. I blinked, and just for the quickest of seconds, I saw them covered in blood instead of water, the blood of the Serpents who’d killed Father Charlie.
My dad. My real, biological dad.
A priest who’d had an affair with a younger, married woman. Something like that went against everything he stood for, didn’t it? And yet… and yet, even with that sin, he was still the best man I’d ever met.
I wished I would’ve had more time with him. I wished I would’ve known. I wished… God, I wished everything was different, that my mother was still alive and that Father Charlie was, too. I wished we could’ve been a family, a real family, instead of the lies we lived.
My hands curled into fists, my fingernails digging into my palms so hard they might’ve broken the skin. I couldn’t feel it. I couldn’t feel anything except an overwhelming hatred for one man, the very same man who was the reason my parents were dead.
Miguel thought he had it all planned out. Teaming up with Rocco, he’d blame the Greenback Serpents for shooting me and killing me—even though there wasn’t a body, that’s what he would say, because he had no reason to believe they’d keep me alive. He and Rocco would demand a paternity test from Atticus and test it against Nixon Hawke, and once it came back that he was the father, another spot on the Black Hand would open up.
And then they’d get the Palmers on their side, with whatever other dirt Miguel had dug up on the Hand. They’d stage a coup, a takeover, and Miguel would only stop when he booted Atticus Jameson from the Hand, along with Shay, so he could sit at the top.
Too bad for that asshole I wasn’t dead.
