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It’s Jeanie. She’s giving me the confidence to return to my family. She’s giving me a lot—a new outlook, a new excitement, a new hunger for life. I want her every second she’s around, and I haven’t felt anything like this since Sonia, and even back then there was always a distance between the two of us.
Now I can understand why Sonia always seemed like she was holding back, like she was standing at a remove.
She was a liar. Everything was fake, from beginning to end.
With Jeanie, there’s no distance. I don’t feel that strange tension with her, only a constant longing. I want to crush the distance and leave it obliterated. I want only her, pure and simple.
I finish my eggs, sip my coffee, and I’m about to leave when Romano comes into the room, looking harried. His eyes are red and his hair’s messed up and he’s breathing like he ran back here from the driveway.
I lean back, surprised, and a bad feeling spikes into my guts. “What’s wrong?”
He slumps into the chair at the end of the table. “Haven’t slept all night,” he says and glares at me. “You woke me up with a job, remember?”
“Right, the hard drives, but that doesn’t explain this dramatic entrance.” An eager excitement courses through my stomach. “What did you find?”
He hesitates, looks at his hands, and stands up. He paces across the front of the room, looking agitated. That’s unlike him—Romano is normally so cool and collected. He’s one of my most trusted capos, a strong and steady hand, respected by everyone in the Famiglia.
“You’re not going to like this,” he says finally, facing me with his hands spread. “I just want to say, you have a habit of taking out your frustration on whoever happens to be nearby.”
“I won’t shoot the messenger if that’s what you’re worried about. What the fuck happened?” My knee’s jostling with worry. If he found something bad on those drives, I don’t know what I’m going to do.
“I had Carlos and Javi working on those hard drives all night, going through everything, looking for any reference to Jeanie, her mother, the post office, or anyone involved in the bribery. And about an hour ago, we found something.”
Excitement hits me. I sit up straight, eager to hear the good news. “Tell me.”
“We found a payment from an account owned by Malcolm into an account owned by that bookie. Seems that he wrote a check, which is fucking absurd.”
“Got him,” I say quietly, grinning. “That puts it all together.” I can already see how we’ll play it: approach Malcolm with everything, from the testimony from Mark to the payment to the bookie. It’s enough that if I gave it to a newspaper, Malcolm would be neck deep in scandal for months or years. It’s enough that he might scuttle the whole damn deal and run with his tail between his legs. Jeanie’s going to be so excited, and I can’t wait to tell her.
Romano holds up a hand. “There’s more.”
“What?” I ask, distracted, already ten steps ahead.
“There were records about Jeanie and her mother. It took a little while for us to figure it out, but once we realized Jeanie isn’t her real name—”
I blink rapidly, frowning. “Sorry, what?”
“Jeanie’s real name is Jolene,” he says slowly. “Her real last name is Finch. Jolene Finch.”
My chest tightens and it feels like the earth opens up and swallows me. Suddenly, all those good feelings, that sense of something positive finally coming into my life, sours.
“Huh,” I say, sitting back, a bad feeling rolling through my stomach. “Okay, so she’s working under a fake name. That makes sense. If Malcolm knows her mother then she’d want to hide herself from him as much as possible.” I don’t like that she never told me, but I can understand it. Maybe I’m not drowning. Maybe I don’t need to sink.
“There’s more. We followed the trail after that and found several documents. Court documents regarding payments.” He clears his throat and stares at me. “Child support payments. He managed to convince a judge to let him off the hook and he never made them, and apparently Jolene’s mother was taking him back to court every few years, hoping one day to finally make him pay, but he always got out of it through bribes and connections and favors.”
I barely hear what he’s saying. My heart thuds in my ears. My mind’s a spinning mess. Child support. I don’t understand, it doesn’t make sense, but my stomach’s turning over and over like a concrete mixer and I feel like I might be sick. I stand suddenly, knocking the chair backwards, and stumble away from him. I steady myself against the wall and Romano takes a few tentative steps toward me, reaching out like I might keel over.
“Are you okay, boss?”
“I’m good,” I say but my voice sounds distant. “Just tell me. Jeanie—I mean, Jolene, whatever the fuck her name is—she’s Malcolm’s daughter?”
“Yeah, Jeanie is Malcolm’s daughter.”
I turn my hand into a fist and slam it against the wall.
She’s his daughter. She never told me she’s his daughter, and suddenly so much snaps into place.
That’s what she’s been hiding. That’s why she hates Malcolm so much and that’s why it’s so personal.
He’s her father. He abandoned her, abandoned her mother, and when they needed his support, he did nothing but ignore them and fight to keep them off his books.
She’s a liar. A fake. A fraud.
Like Sonia.
I feel like my brain’s breaking into pieces, cracking into shards, and all the joy I felt drains away into the darkness that’s been waiting for me all this time.
And I don’t know what I’m going to do.
