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I turn to look at him. “Why? Because it reminds you of Mom?”
His lip curls, and I know I’m right. He knows she loved this song. Maybe they danced to it together before they had me, back when Dad was still the dancing type.
“I want to sing to my baby. It might be the last chance I get.” I hum a few more bars under my breath. “She would have been so happy to know I was having a baby. Did you ever notice the way her eyes would light up whenever she saw a stroller? Mom loved babies.”
“She behaved like a good politician’s wife should, that’s all.”
“Don’t be so cynical. You know that’s not true.” Sure, it was good publicity, the mayoress fawning over the babies of Coldlake, but Mom really did cherish every single child she came across. Mom will never get to hold my baby. Smile at my baby. Teach me how to bathe them and rock them to sleep or tell me all the little stories about the ways she raised me. I blink hard as tears crowd my eyes.
“I have to do this without her because of you,” I say, my voice husky with emotion. “If I make it out of here alive. I don’t know the first thing about babies. Sure, I’ll learn. I’ll get by. But it won’t be the same as having my mother with me.”
Crushing silence from Dad.
“What saddens me most is that she died for nothing because we thwarted all your plans. And you’re supposed to be the clever one, Dad.”
Dad’s jaw flexes like he’s grinding his teeth.
“The syndicate and I are against you, and you’re not going to win the next election.”
Dad gives a mirthless laugh. “When my opponent is Christian ‘corpse-fucker’ Galloway? I’ll be just fine.”
We’ll see about that. There are plenty of ways Dad could lose the mayorship. I swear that if by some miracle I get out of here alive, I’ll make sure everyone knows the truth about him.
“How did it feel, killing my mother?”
Stony silence.
“At first, I thought Lorenzo killed Mom. It was his knife in your hand. I never expected to look up into the murderer’s face and see my own father.”
I may as well be talking to a brick wall, but he’s got no choice but to listen to me.
“Do you want to know what happened to that knife? While we were desperately trying to find Nicole—great plan pretending she was dead, by the way—Lorenzo threw it away. He understood how much it hurt me to see it in his hand.”
“What a prince,” Dad mutters.
“Compared to you, he’s a king.”
“I’m glad you’re happy together, you and your pack of mangy wolves.”
“I am happy. I think I deserve some happiness after what you did.”
Dad turns to look at me finally, hatred suffusing his face. I’m happy. I’vedaredto be happy while defying him. “That woman was a liability. Little did I know her daughter was a liability, too. I’m disgusted with you, Chiara. I never raised you to be such a slut.”
“You didn’t raise me. She did.”
“That explains a lot,” he says and turns away.
Asshole.
“You’re not going to feel anything as he kills me, are you? If you’re not going to try and save me, at least think of my unborn child. I’m carrying your grandson or your granddaughter. They’ll have your blood. They’re your legacy.”
“A bastard brat of the Coldlake Syndicate? That’s not my legacy. It’s better that they die today with their whore of a mother.”
I close my eyes and turn my face away. “You’re going to die speaking such ugly words, and you’re going straight to hell.”
“He’s not going to kill me, you stupid girl,” Dad sneers. “He thinks he’s going to punish me by murdering you, but he’s doing me a favor.”
“Who?”
