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“You’re right.”
I hated it when Greta was right. I didn’t want to confront them, but I was going to have to talk to somebody if I wanted answers.
And as if the universe was in agreement, my phone rang from the bed next to my laptop. He’d called seventeen times in the past twenty-four hours, so it was really no surprise he was calling now. I didn’t silence the ringer this time.
I grit my jaw, steeled my shoulders, and answered the phone. Greta nodded like she avidly approved.
“Ciao, zietto.”
“Dio, Raven, why haven’t you been answering your phone?” Vito barked, though I could hear the tightness in his throat.
I swallowed hard. “I know the truth,zietto.I saw the news aboutMammina’s… about Maria Luca’s death. The rest of my family is alive.”
Vito sighed. “I know,passerotta.I’m sorry I couldn’t tell you.”
“Then tell me now,per favore. Help me understand what possible reason they had for convincing their ten-year-old daughter her whole family was dead?” I may have sounded angry, but really, I was begging him. Pleading with him to throw me a lifeline because it felt like I was sinking, a little more every day.
“I can’t do that.”
A knot formed in the pit of my stomach, and my heart pumped harder. “Can’t? Or won’t?” Because I couldn’t imagine that Vito had been kept entirely in the dark. He must have knownsomething.
“You need to stay away from your family, Raven.”
But what about me? Didn’t I matter in this equation? He had to have some inkling of what this was doing to me.
“Theycan’tknow about you,” he said, his voice thick with sympathy. But I didn’t want his pity.
“You’re afraid I’m going to waltz up to them and ruin their lie?” I spat.
“That’s not—”
“Let me put your worries to rest,” I said, throwing my free arm wide. “I promise I will not show up at my family’s door. They can keep right on going like I never existed.”
It was mostly true. I had no intention of showing up at their door, but somehow, they were going to know I existed. They couldn’t just sweep me under a rug and forget me.
“That’s not what they wanted, Raven.”
“No? What is it they wanted?”
Silence.
“Arrivederci, zietto,” I said then hung up the phone.
I regretted it right away. Vito wasn’t just some stranger who’d whisked me away from my home. He was the man who’d made me spaghetti and meatballs for every birthday. The man who’d kept the bathroom cabinet stocked with tampons and took me shopping for my first bra. The man who used to hound me about homework and then cheered at the top of his lungs the day I graduated. Vito had done everything a father was supposed to do. He was my father. Heismy father.
I wanted to collapse back on the bed, curl up under the covers—maybe forever—but at the same time, my heart was still pumping hard.
My whole body seemed to vibrate with the need to move, to fight, to dosomething.
“I’m sorry, Raven,” Greta said.
I shook my head, trying to shrug it off, but the movementandthe adrenaline seemed to jar my brain into action.
“The Costa family—they own Onyx, don’t they?” It had been in some news headline somewhere.
“I don’t really know,” she said slowly, her jaw clenching, eyes darting left and right. “Why?”
“An alliance with the Costas was important to my family. I don’t know why, but I remember my father talking about it.” I’d been instrumental to that somehow, though apparently, not enough to bother keeping around.
