The two-story house once again wore its orange brick facade. There were brand-new black French doors with golden handles. The columns were white again, too.
When the car pulled up, I couldn’t bring myself to move. Stunned, I watched as a giant southern magnolia stood on the right side of the house, complete with a small wooden rope swing. Just like when I was a little girl.
It was impossible. The former owners had uprooted that tree. Yet there it stood, full-grown, making it feel as if time had flowed backward.
“Daisy!” A woman’s scream made my eyes widen. My aunt was running toward the taxi, followed by Oliver and Olivia.
I quickly paid the driver and stepped out with the suitcase Luca had insisted I bring. I hadn’t even moved two meters when my aunt threw herself at me, choking me in a tight embrace, filling my lungs with her signature bubblegum scent.
“Honeybee! Oh my God, why did you lie to us?” she wailed, her voice muffled against my hair.
She knew everything. So did my best friend. And Oliver. After Camillo asked Liv for help, I’d had no choice but to reveal the whole truth.
“Daisy Doll,” Oliver called. I looked up over my aunt’s shoulder, refusing to let go. My former boss looked distraught, his eyes sunken in a way I’d never seen. “Damn, girl. You scared us to death.”
I didn’t answer. My gaze shifted to the beautiful, dark-haired woman behind him. Olivia’s face was taut with anxiety, her eyesstinging with tears she refused to let fall. I swallowed hard. If Olivia knew what I had done—if she had the slightest suspicion that I had executed three children in cold blood—she would never forgive me. In that moment, I realized that for the first time in twelve years, an abyss was opening between us: a secret I could never reveal.
My aunt stepped back just enough to look at me. “Did those mobsters hurt you?”
I shook my head. “No, Aunt Lizzie,” I murmured, sniffing back tears. “At least, not the ones who took me to Italy.”
“It was the guy who showed up at the diner that day, wasn’t it, doll?” Oliver asked, stepping closer. I noticed how he placed a protective hand on the modest curve of my aunt’s belly, and I couldn’t help but smile sadly.
“It was, Oli. It was,” I confessed.
“Damn. I knew that dude was fishy,” he admitted, rubbing his chin. “Those tattoos he had… those are prison ink. They only give those to people who ‘take care’ of others on the inside. I should’ve known it was a bad sign.”
A shiver ran through me. I wondered what they would say if they knew I’d give anything to go back to him. To the man they saw as a mere criminal.
“Daisy…” Olivia’s voice was like velvet. I wanted to hug her, but I hesitated. Did I still have that right? When she finally strode forward and pulled me to her, I broke down. I sobbed into her shoulder. “When that guy called me, I… I thought we’d lost you,” she whispered.
“I’m fine.” I sobbed. No, I wasn’t. But she couldn’t understand that. “They kidnapped me, but Camillo saved me.”
Olivia pulled away, searching my face. “That Camillo is the one who caused all of this.”
I shook my head, wiping my cheeks. “No, he didn't. The man who took me was a monster. A human trafficker.”
“And you think Camillo Vicari isn’t just as dangerous? Daisy, that mobster has killed more people than you can imagine.”
“Good men sometimes do terrible things.”
Olivia smiled, yet I felt no warmth in her expression. Quite the opposite.
“The situation was traumatic. It’s normal for you to be confused.”
My brow furrowed, and before I knew it, I was walking away from her with quick, angry strides. “I’m not confused,” I growled, perhaps too harshly. “Camillo is a wonderful man.”
“Daisy. That’s Stockholm Syndrome.”
Olivia’s words were a punch to my stomach. Aunt Lizzie approached me and placed a sympathetic hand on my back, drawing soothing circles. “There’s time to discuss this. I’m sure Daisy just wants to rest.”
But there was no time. Or if there was, I didn’t care anymore. “What I feel is a far cry from mental illness,” I snapped. Olivia’s eyes widened, but I didn’t give her a chance to reply. “I’ve been dead inside for too long to let you tell me now that the love I feel is just a trick of the mind.”
Olivia wanted to fire back; I could see it written all over her face, in the defiant tilt of her chin. That was why I quickened my pace toward the house. It wasn’t just my best friend I was turning my back on. It was the person I used to be.
I stepped inside.
Walking through those hallways again was like being sucked into a whirlpool of memories. My pace slowed as my mind took in the sight before me. The renovation had extended to the interior as well. There was that beautiful white wainscoting again, with floral engravings along the bottom of the walls. As soon as I entered the living room, I found two modern salmon-pink sofas that perfectly mimicked the ones my father used to have.
