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“I was maybe four or five.” Trying to put the conversation together, I shook my head. “I think mother told daddy she was pregnant with Kyle and things needed to change.”
“The timeline matches up,” Soren murmured. “It would have been around that time either Theo approached the FBI, or the FBI approached him.”
“Do you think our mother might have done it?” I asked, glancing between the men. “I’ve been thinking about it since Miceli told me the truth. Could my mother have caused this whole situation because she wanted out so bad?”
Rocco sat back, closing his notepad he’d been taking notes on. “That is a question I can answer. The file for your parents begins about six months before Kyle’s birth. By your own admission, your mother was arguing with your father about being part of the families. As a parent, I’m sure it wasn’t easy for her to protect you both. There has to be a healthy amount of fear surviving within the Syndicate of Families. She must have seen what was happening and wanted no part of it.”
Yeah, that sounded like our mother. She put on a facade when she went to those parties in the early years. She laughed and gossiped with the rest of the wives while the children were corralled together, playing with toys that appeared before us. It never made sense to me what was going on until I was older and could understand some of the adult conversations drifting around the room.
“Daddy would have been honor bound in both realms,” I said. “He’d be loyal to those who were loyal to him, and he’d help the FBI because it was the right thing to do.”
Kyle agreed.
“Do you think he has any type of recording devices in his office?” Rocco asked. The hopeful note in his voice made me want to say yes, but I couldn’t say for sure. Daddy was private. Good at his job. He hated anyone snooping around his space. Everything, and I mean everything, was password protected. He also had safes. Where he kept all of his clients’ information.
“Maybe,” I said. “But he’d have had it protected by passwords or encryption. It won’t be easy to get into, but I suspect everyone knows that already or else you would have found his client folders and information.”
“That’s a start,” Rocco muttered. “Do you think if we got back into the house, you could show me?”
“Do you honestly believe they’re still there even a year later?” I countered.
“Yes.” He didn’t hesitate. “Police removed nothing from the house. They’re covering for someone. Who? I don’t know. What I can tell you is that you and Kyle should have never been officially declared dead until we ran out of leads or evidence contrary to your survival.”
“We thought for sure you’d figure it out,” Kyle said. “We took an unfamiliar car, used cards and phones we shouldn’t have. Almost got caught a few times in the beginning.”
“We learned from our mistakes,” I added. “We bought new phones not connected to us. Didn’t use our computers. Only used cash. We sold our father’s car for a couple of grand, then went on the road.”
Miceli made a harsh sound behind me. “You bought a bug device to sweep your car, didn’t you?”
I nodded. “I found several bugs before we finally arrived here. We learned to sweep the car in the morning and at night. I also did it with all our things too, just to be safe.”
“Did you know there were two more devices in your car?” Soren asked, speaking for the first time since the conversation began. “Or that your oil line had been cut?”
I stared at him, remembering when Antonio and Benny fixed my car. I blanched, the knot in my stomach twisted hard. “That was a trap...” I could barely get the words past my lips.
“We think so,” Miceli stated. “You’d blow your engine. They’d track you, and you’d be sitting ducks.”
I scrubbed my face and groaned. It was never ending. I’d been so focused on everything else, I hadn’t even contemplated someone mechanically damaging our car, so we’d be left on the side of the road. I didn’t even want to think about what would or could have happened had we been found that way. “Kyle and I know nothing about what Daddy did. He kept it all in his office. Why are we so important we have to die, too?”
“Did anyone see you that day?” Rocco hedged. “Maybe they thought you spotted them.”
“No. I came home after whoever was there had left. Finding Kyle... I shouldn’t have been able to.”
“We heard a noise in the house,” Kyle whispered, looking at me. “While we were grabbing stuff so we could leave. “Maybe you were right. Someone else was in the house, and that’s how they know.”
I swallowed hard. “No one followed us that day. I got Kyle to some backwoods clinic to fix his shoulder, then we ran.”
“There could have been a tracker in all of your parents’ vehicles,” Soren said. “They wouldn’t have had to follow you.”
God, this was all so fucked up. “There was another murder, in a small diner in the middle of nowhere. They were good people. Guess whoever was after us went there first. I found both the owner and his wife the next morning.”
“Did anyone see you then?”
“Yes. I had to rush back to the motel we were staying in to grab Kyle. I took side roads and stayed away from a route since it was the easiest. By the time we were in the car and on the freeway once more, my tail was gone.” Or so I thought. From the sounds of it, we were never alone, and I’d done a shit job of protecting us. Yay, me.
“The diner on Route 9. I saw the photos. Those were Torino’s men, even if the police wouldn’t talk about it,” Rocco stated. “You were lucky you got out when you did.”
“Not before someone else had to die because of us,” I sobbed. “Nobody should have to lose their lives for something they’re not involved in.”
