“Tell me what. Teo, tell me what?” Her voice, though quiet now, is laced with desperation.
It’s strange that things were so warm before when we were just drinking our coffee and enjoying each other's company. Now, it’s almost as if I can see the ice crawling up the walls, the clouds of breath that escaped her trembling mouth.
She didn’t know.
This whole time, she thought I was fighting to settle some kind of generational score.
“Isabella,” I say softly before stopping myself. I’m trying to find the right words.
“Teo!”
“I…” I swallow and take a long breath. “She was sick that day. We were both supposed to stay at Rocco’s, but she was too tired to get out of bed. So I just…we just left her there.”
Isabella’s eyes are already filling with tears. “No.”
“She was only eight. The doctor said the fever would pass overnight, and my mother wanted to stay by her side. But the meeting with the Natalis was important. My parents fought about it before I left for Rocco’s.”
I look away. “The last thing I said to her was to get better. That I’d see her again in the morning.”
Isabella makes a strangled kind of noise.
“They told me after that my parents…their bodies…they were in my sister’s room when they found them. They must have gone up to get her, but by that point, it was too late.”
“She…she wouldn’t,” Isabella croaks through her tears. “She…she…”
Instinctively, I pull her close to me as the misery of my words wrecks her body. Her grief is so shockingly familiar I feel my own heart clench at the sight of it.
My sister’s death, my parent's death, is a burden I have carried my whole life. But I never suffered under any delusion about who was responsible for it. Even if there’s still a part of me that wants to blame myself.
Isabella is not only learning the horror of the truth, but also that she wasliedto about it by someone she clearly trusted.
And though our grandparents, and great grandparents and generations of Vitales and Natalis are probably turning in their graves, I hold her all the tighter.
After a long while, her body stops shaking and a muffled voice whispers into my chest. “She admitted it. I didn’t realize then, but she said she would have happily cleaned up theloose ends.”
I let the familiar wave of anger rise and fall within me. “I’m sorry, Isabella.”
“No,” she half chokes. “No, don’t you dare. It’s me that needs to apologize.”
“Don’t. It still doesn’t change anything, does it? She’s still your mother.”
She opens her mouth to protest but seems to think better of it. “She needs to be brought to justice for this.”
“You know what kind of justice I require.”
Isabella shakes her head. “No. No. Don’t do that. Let me talk to Leon. When he knows the truth, he’ll cast her out. We’ll abandon her, we can…”
Her mouth suddenly goes slack.
“What?”
“Leon,” she squeaks.
“What about Leon?” I say more urgently.
She looks at me with wide eyes. “Phase two. Teo, we need to stop him.”
“Stop him from what? Isabella. Tell me right now.”
