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I ignored him and turned to Vienna. “So you knew the whole time?” Roberto’s head was hanging in an awkward direction. He was grumbling in pain.
“I never thought that you actually killed my father. I was trying to prove that you didn’t.”
I had to tell her the truth. But I didn't know how I would do it.
“Let's go to the kitchen.” I grabbed my knife off the floor and I held it against his throat. “And if you so much as breathe the wrong way, I will come back in here and slice you open. Do I make myself clear?”
He moaned in response.
I walked out of the bedroom and began pacing back and forth in the kitchen. Vienna followed me, looking completely distraught. How was I supposed to tell her this? When she turned on her own family in order to protect me?
“You need to sit down.”
She got up onto one of the barstools and put her face in her hands.
“Your dad and your mom split up when you were just a baby. He was a drunken bastard that used to beat her and you on a regular basis. He was wasted all the fucking time.”
I shook my head, remembering him so clearly. “Maria had somehow escaped with you before things got worse than they were. She came to my father looking for work and protection. She knew that one day, he would come looking for her. An entire decade passed, and he never did. Then suddenly, one day, he showed up at the club, asking about you and her. I was there. I saw the whole thing. He was a mess. He took a swig out of a flask just to stand up and stop his body from shaking. He couldn't be trusted. My father turned him away. But he kept coming back. Your mom came to my father and asked him for help. She wanted round-the-clock surveillance, even on you at school. It was too much.” I paused taking a breath. Her eyes were growing wider with every admission. “I was seventeen. Almost a man. My initiation was supposed to be the following year, but when your mother was so afraid and I thought that he was going to hurt you, I took matters into my own hands. I went to my father and told him that I was going to kill your dad.” She lifted her head and her mouth dropped open a little, but I pressed on. “He approved, said it made me a good man. So I did it. I went to the motel that he was staying at and I put a bullet in his head. He didn't even try to fight me. He knew it was coming, and I think he wanted it to happen. Just be put out of his misery.”
I walked over to her, but she pulled away, looking afraid. I had just solidified everything in her mind that told her that I was dangerous. I was the monster who had killed her father. The person that tore her family apart.
“You know he had a friend. He was crazier than your dad was. He came into that office with a gun and killed three people, including your mother. He was taking revenge out on us. Vienna, we would've done anything to keep you safe after that night. And I'm still trying to make up for it. But this? Lying to me? It doesn’t make me feel like I made the right choice.” I couldn’t believe our relationship had been built on this lie. On both of our deceits.
I was going to get hell for saying that, but I probably deserved it.
“You didn't make the right choice? You killed my father! You couldn't have helped him? Got him into rehab? Maybe he could have changed! Didn't you and your family ever think of that? Did you even give him a chance? And everything that happened here? I thought Roberto would kill me if I didn’t do it. He’s told me for years how bad you are, and how he needed to prove it to me. Whenever I said no, he’d hit me. He’d torment me! I had to do this. I just had to!”
Now the tears were really flowing. I wrapped my arms around her and she was sobbing into my chest, pounding her little fists on me. I knew she was hurting, and I knew that it was my fault. But in the end, I did it to protect her. And since she allowed me to keep my arms around her, I knew that deep down, she knew that. She knew that it was what was right.
“I'm sorry. I'm sorry that I took your father away from you. But I just didn't want you to get hurt! I never want to see you hurt. It kills me that I caused you this pain.”
She pulled back and wiped her face, her skin red and blotchy from her tears. It looked like her face had been stained with her sadness.
“I understand why you did what you did. But I just can't forgive you yet.”
“Then I will do everything to make sure that you do. Starting with your uncle. What do you want me to do with him?” I knew what I wanted to do to him, send him to an early grave for putting her up to this. For hitting her. But it was her choice. I needed to respect that.
She sighed heavily. “Send him home. Back to Jersey. Make sure I don't ever have to see him again.”
I nodded. “I'll make a call. What else can I do?”
She shook her head. “I just need some time alone. I'm going for a walk, and when I get back, he needs to be gone.”
I nodded. “Done. But I need something too. I have to know what of this is actually real?”
She sighed. “Everything.” She rubbed her belly for a moment. “Roberto sent me here for information, but even that first night, I realized I never wanted to find anything. I had fallen for you the moment I got into your car. That night, the one night we spent at the club when our parents were out of town, I almost kissed you that night. I wanted to so badly. Roberto turned my anger over my mother’s death against you, and I thought that hatred he developed in me could erase all those feelings I had for you. But it couldn’t, it never did. I tried to end it, you can even ask him. I was so afraid he would kill me.”
She was a rat, but her heart was in the right place. And it was clear she was terrified of Roberto. I had to forgive her. She was weak with years of anger and sadness. And those were caused by me. As angry as I was at her in that moment for deceiving me, I knew the anger
wouldn’t last long. She would find her way underneath my skin again, in some ways she already had.
She started to move away from me, but I caught her by the hand. “I want to keep you,” I said to her as honestly as possible. It hurt too much to watch her walk away from me.
“I know.” She pulled her hand out of mine and walked toward the bedroom door. I prayed that it wouldn’t be the last time that I ever saw her.
24
Vienna
