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My heart jolts. “About what?”
“About that gorgeous brother of yours. I didn’t even know you had a brother.”
Dinner is tense.
The coq au vin that Cook prepared looks and smells delicious, but the flavor is lost on me when I’m consumed with thoughts of Falcon and of the conversation Vinnie and I are going to have tonight.
My mother is sullen toward me.
Is this truly the same mother who took me on that mother-daughter day so long ago? That perfect memory that has been my safe space for so long? The mother who looks like me, with a fair complexion and a spray of freckles, so different from my darker-skinned brothers who resemble my father.
We eat mostly in silence, until finally I can’t take it any longer.
“Mom, what’s going on?”
She stops her fork midway to her mouth and glares at me. “What’s going on, Savannah, is that your father—my husband—is not here. He’s being held without bail for the murder of Miles McAllister, an action he committed to save your boyfriend.”
“Exactly,” I say. “So he shouldn’t be charged with murder. He was defending someone. He was defending Falcon.”
“You and your criminal justice background,” she says. “Don’t you know by now that the rules don’t apply to us? He killed the son of a rival family. It doesn’t matter why he did it. It doesn’t matter if doing so prevented war, or famine, or the destruction of the universe. He will go down for it. Declan McAllister will see to that.”
“Sav,” Vinnie says, “there’s more at work here than you understand.”
“Then help me understand, Vinnie.”
“Your father is expendable,” Mom says. “Your father was always expendable, and your grandfather won’t bargain for him because now Vinnie is back to take his place.” Mom turns to Vinnie. “Not that I’m upset that you’re back, honey. I’ve been dreaming of this day.” Then she turns back to me, glaring. “But if you’d done as you agreed to—married Miles—none of this would be happening.”
“So you’d prefer I be unhappy and married to a kidnapper and rapist?”
She slams her fork down on her plate. “Do you think it was any different from what I went through?”
“Are you telling us that Dad raped you?” Vinnie asks through clenched teeth.
“No,” she says. “Your father was good to me. I was only eighteen, and we’d just met. He was gentle. Or he tried to be, anyway. He was kind and never laid a hand on me until I was ready.” She looks down at the table. “Unlike my own father.”
“Grandpa—”
“Don’t look so surprised, Savannah,” Mom snaps. “We all know what your grandfather is capable of.”
I do now. Especially after Vinnie told me what Grandpa did to him when he turned eighteen. Except?—
“He never touched me that way,” I say.
“No, he didn’t,” Mom says. “He’d never soil his little cricket. He had a soft spot for you.”
Vinnie twists his face in anger. “Christ, Mom. All these years?—”
Mom pushes her plate away. “I’m done. I’m done with this pleasant dining experience. I’m blaming you for everything that’s happened, Savannah.”
“Mom, I?—”
“Be quiet,” she says. “Perhaps I’ll see it another way eventually, but at the moment I’m no longer under my husband’s care. I’m under my father’s, and that is a very dangerous place to be. For all of us.” She rises. “I’m retiring to my room.” She whisks out of the formal dining room.
My heart is in shambles. My grandfather raped my mother? Wasn’t she supposed to be a virgin like I was? So much I don’t understand, and frankly I don’t want to understand it. I ache for my mother, but her blame on me is misplaced.
Hedy, our maid, comes in to clear the dishes. “Do either of you need anything else?” she asks.
“Yeah,” Vinnie says. “A bourbon. Neat.”
