Silence falls again as the revelation hangs heavy in the air. Truthfully, there’s a part of me that has already been trying to piece together a history that could sensibly explain Juliana Guerra being our sister. But so many things would have had to fall into place to make that happen. I just don’t see it.
“You guys have to meet her. Talk to her.” Frankie looks at Dante. “You deserve a chance to know the truth.”
“She’s aBruno,” I remind them. “Even if she’s one of us by blood, she’snotone of us in practice. Okay? Besides, she was inside the bakery when it went up in flames.”
All eyes are on me now.
“You’re saying she’s dead?” Marco sputters. “Did you kill our sister?”
I give him a hard stare. “We’re not jumping to conclusions here.”
Bursting from the couch, Marco strides angrily over to me. “This is unbelievable! Fucking unbelievable. You bring us this load of crap, setting us up with the possibility that this woman might be our sister, and then you say she’s also probably dead thanks to the pyrotechnics you pulled with that old ghoul Riggante?”
Dante stands, instantly commanding the room. “Let’s just try to stay calm. First things first, we need to know if she survived the fire. Then we can figure out what to do next.”
“Agreed. And Clayton—I need you to investigate the accident that killed our mother and sister,” I say. “I want to know who did it, who saw it, who heard about it later over a beer. Figure out if by some miracle a kid could have walked away from it alive. Track down every last detail, even the insignificant stuff. Rumors, gossip, leads that were dead ends. All of it.”
“It was a bomb, right?” Clayton asks. “An explosion? Only one victim recovered?”
“Yes sir. This is your top priority now. Dig deep. And don’t stop digging until you find something that we haven’t. Police reports, eyewitness accounts from the search and rescue team, the Coast Guard…maybe you can talk to someone who remembers when it happened. Older mob guys, maybe retired now. Or their wives.”
Clayton nods. He’s already tapping notes into his phone. The conversation picks up around the room and it gives me a moment to think. If Juliana did survive, the only way to know for sure whether or not she’s our sister is genetic testing. My phone vibrates in my pocket. I read the text beneath the desktop.
Orloff survived.
Fuck.
Hiding my reaction, I put my phone away. The fire was all for nothing. I made promises to the other families, stuck my neck out, and for what? This war is far from over, and who the hell knows what I’ll have to do to rally the families again. If we even get that chance. Because now, Bruno knows we’re on to his plan to ally with the Russians. This attempt to take out Orloff and stop the wedding has outed us, and we’ve lost the element of surprise.
If we get a chance to strike again, it’s going to have to be from the inside.
“What is it?” Dante is standing next to me. I hadn’t even heard him approach.
“Nothing.”
“Bullshit. You got a message.”
Clearing my throat, I drop my feet from the desk and sit tall. “Orloff survived.”
Dante turns away. Marco looks at the ceiling and curses. Karina rests her head on his shoulder, her expression fearful.
“So what happens now?” Frankie says.
I don’t have an answer to that. “I’ll meet with the other families again. We’ll figure something out. Make a new plan.”
Marco looks over at me. “What about Juliana? Did she make it out, too?”
“No word on her yet.”
He looks between Dante and me. “I know you assholes don’t think it’s her, but my gut is telling me we need to look into this more. Dad lied about everything. Maybe they didn’t die. Maybe he put them away somewhere or…who the hell knows what? Or maybe he really did believe they died, but they didn’t. If there’s even the smallest chance that this woman is our sister, we need to follow up on it. I mean, what’s the last thing you remember Dad telling you that turned out to be true?”
I don’t want to agree with him, but he’s got me there. Our father never told the truth about anything.
Maybe our sister is alive, after all.
9
CANDI
