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“You won’t.”
This plan isn’t ideal. I have the USB, and Jonathan and Julia both want to know what’s on it.
They’ll have to wait, though. Marino would have known if I took them with us. And seeing as Viviana is hurt, I need her to have Julia with her.
As soon as we make it back to the compound, we head into the surveillance room and fire up the monitors.
Document after document is pulled up.
My eyes go wide.
Holy fucking shit.
Marino will no longer be a problem.
Thanks to Ana, I now have the governor by his balls.
Now, how to handle it is another question.
The first thing I have to do is tell Julia and Jonathan what I found. But there is no easy way to do that.
Not without hurting them. Not without hurting Viviana.
I have made this trip more than I should. But after today, I’ll never have to do this again.
They announce my presence. Then I’m waiting in the foyer.
The need to see her is all-consuming, and when she does take the stairs down, I know I’ll want to cross over to her and take her in my arms.
I don’t have the time for that.
The cops will be here soon. The evidence scheduled to hit the detective on my payroll’s inbox any minute.
We will be long gone before I allow myself to be tied to this mess. This needs to be done in private, but time is not on our side. We no longer have the luxury of waiting, so even though it’s not ideal, I will do this now. Because with each moment that passes, there is a bigger chance Marino will do something drastic, and I can’t risk leaving Viviana here any longer.
The first person I see is Jonathan. His sister is on his heels behind him.
“What was on the USB drive?”
I take a deep breath and hand him the printout copies. He starts to rummage through them. I can see the way his pupils widen as he reads through the words. The way his fist clenches every now and then.
I see when he comes across it.
When the vein in his forehead looks like it’s going to explode.
The moment he realizes who he really is. How his presence really hits into everything. Julia is next to look at the reason her mother is locked in the purgatory of her mind.
The sobs can’t be mistaken.
The way she falls to the floor . . .
It’s not every day you find out a truth like this.
It’s not every day you find out you are the illegitimate daughter of a monster.
It took me a while to comprehend what Ana had saved. From the evidence gathered, Marino and Ana had an affair. She was his mistress when she became pregnant, and it was decided she couldn’t tell.
Political dreams and all. I’m not sure if he threatened her, or if she stayed out of love . . .
Only Ana can tell that story, but what I do know is somewhere along the line, she found out a secret about her lover, about the father of her children.
The secret so big, I’m not sure if Viviana ever had anything to do with the fire.
In the documents is all the proof we will ever need to keep Marino behind bars for life, and if my cousin ever found out, Marino would be dead.
There, documented, were all the crimes.
All the women.
Somehow, Marino had gotten his hands on incriminating evidence about Salvatore’s father's human trafficking operation. There were pictures of both the girls taken and the men who purchased them. All the records of years of abuse were saved.
He wanted to keep the mob boss in his pocket. But with the files he received, he forgot to remove the ones on himself. The ones that proved his knowledge and his own participation in the operation. He was apparently a very loyal client.
“Holy crap,” Jules says, as she finally pulls herself together.
“Fuck.” Jonathan’s voice cuts in next. “He’s our father,” he whispers. “Our fucking father.”
“We need to tell Viviana first. Where is she?” I ask.
“I’ll go get her.” Julia walks off, heading up the stairs.
“What are you doing here, Amante? I thought I made my position perfectly clear. When I didn’t answer, I didn’t want your deal.”
“Deal’s off the table, anyway. The only deal you should be considering right now is with the DA.”
“What the fuck are you going on about? I own this state. No one is coming for me.”
“Are you sure about that?” I collect the papers and toss the file at him nonchalantly.
His nostrils flare, his eyes going wide with anger.
“Where the fuck did you get this?”
“Wouldn’t you like to know.”
“I should have killed the bitch when I had a chance.”
And then the other shoe finally drops. A gasp reverberates through the space as understanding hits Jonathan.
“You . . . You did this to her?” There is no need to clarify. “You put her in that place, and you let us all believe that—holy fuck. You let us believe our sister did it. You were going to have us hurt our sister. Fuck. I almost killed her.” Jonathan now falls to the floor, devastated by everything that transpired.
