Page 86 of Thin Lives

He heard the tumblers click.

He pulled down on the handle.

The safe opened—finally.

For a long while, Calisto just stared at the mountain of papers inside the safe. He hesitated, wondering if he wanted to go through the hell of reading all of his mother’s letters again, not to mention the ones she’d given to him that were written to her from Affonso all those years ago.

His hesitation faded fast.

He’d forgotten her—forgotten her hell.

Calisto owed this to his mother, at the very least.

One by one, he pulled the papers and letters out. He read them, touched the curves and strokes of the ink where she had made her words, and then he folded them up and started making a pile.

He didn’t entirely know why, but he thought he might need them.

It was only after Calisto had pulled out most of the papers did he find other documents that would have reminded him during his memory loss of how much of a bastard Affonso Donati was.

Document after document of payments, birth certificates, and information for children—illegitimate children that Calisto had been taking care of for years. His half-siblings.

Calisto froze all over again.

Ice-cold in his veins.

Fire-hot in his heart.

The Irish.

Connor O’Neil—the boss.

Calisto’s clear, crisp memory of that one meeting he’d had with the Irish boss burrowed deep into his brain, holding tight and refusing to let go.

He knew exactly why Affonso wanted the Irish gone, and why he would allow blame to be placed on them. It was just more secrets he wanted to keep. It was possible that Affonso believed the Irish had been the ones to attack Calisto all those months ago, and that he didn’t know it was actually Ray, but Affonso’s motives were never as clean-cut as he tried to make them out to be.

He always had other agendas.

This was no exception.

Calisto grabbed the stack full of letters and slammed the safe shut. He ignored the dizziness as he scooped his phone off his desk, and shoved it into his pocket with the letters.

He did have allies.

He’d simply forgotten about them for a time.

Emma

Emma ran her hands over the skirt of her robin’s-egg-blue dress, smoothing out crinkles that didn’t exist. She needed the distraction as she stared across the floor of the church, taking in the many faces watching her from the pews.

She searched for the one face she wanted to see the most, and came up entirely empty.

Like her heart.

Like her soul.

Gone.

Blank.