“I should have told you the truth from the very beginning.”
The sadness and pity in her eyes make me swallow down any biting response. Instead I merely ask, “Could you tell me the truth now?”
She sighs, repositioning herself so she can lean back against the wall. “My dad…your dad…they were part of Giuliano Moretti’s inner circle. They were accountants, really. Carmine had a way with numbers, and my father appreciates that kind of thing.”
You could hear a pin drop as Mia draws her next breath.
“I didn’t know about it officially until I was sixteen. But by that point, I’d already guessed. I thought about writing to you about it a hundred times over, but…” she pauses before continuing. “They told me what your mom went through to get you out, and I just couldn’t.”
“No one leaves,” I whisper back.
Mia nods. “Your mom went to Giuliano herself a week after Teo Vitale’s family was murdered. I didn’t know until much later how dark things were at that point. That my own father had considered leaving as well.”
“Someone killed Teo’s parents?”
“And his sister.” Mia stares out the window. “She was our age, Cas. She used to play with us sometimes.”
I literally shudder at the hazy memory that resurfaces. I suddenly remember a dark-haired girl with a bright smile running around the park with us tailing behind her. Squeals of delight escaped her lips as Mia tackled her to the floor in my mind’s eye.
“I don’t know how your mom convinced him,” Mia continues. “But with the Vitale family gone, Giuliano told her if she wanted to leave, she had to disappear for good. Neither of you were ever meant to come back to Brooklyn again.”
Then why did my father have me brought back?The question bubbles to the surface, but I choke it back down.
“But you and your family stayed?” I ask instead.
“Things started to change when Rocco when Giuliano started losing power. I was eighteen and ready to prove myself, so I started helping my dad out here and there.” Her cheeks flush a little, and she looks away.
I narrow my eyes at her. “What else?”
“I tend the bar.”
“Mia.”
“Cassandra.”
“Tell me.”
She sighs. “On occasion, I’ve been known to help my father collect his debts.”
To my jaw-dropping surprise, she pulls out a knife that was somehow concealed within her jeans and begins to twirl it around her fingers with expert precision.
I watch as the tiny blade catches the light every few seconds, utterly transfixed.
“I’m not entirely proud of it, but I am good at what I do. Good enough that people tend to leave me alone, at least,” she admits, “I try not to get involved with Guild politics, anyhow.”
A familiar numbness begins to grip my heart once more. “But you knew what really happened to my father, didn’t you?”
Sadness immediately slumps Mia’s shoulders. “Teo and Martino were there that night, too. They said that…Rocco…he did everything he could to get Carmine to stop.”
I blink at her in confusion. “Claudio said…hekilled him.”
“I’m sure Rocco feels that way too,” Mia sighs. “But your father’s suicide wasn’t his fault.”
Her words hover between us, but I refuse to let them sink in. “No.”
But Mia persists anyway. “They’d discovered your father was selling information to the Cartel and was trying to make a run for it. Rocco was only bringing him in for questioning because there was no way in hell Carmine was working alone.”
“I’m done with this.”
