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A lead weight drops into my throat at the revelation, and I suck in a deep gulp of air, trying to ignore the initial shock settling in. Of course, Papá orchestrated that. So much for blood loyalty.
“Did you ever think maybe I didn’t want to come back? Or that none of what happened between us had anything to do with you?”
“I know it doesn’t make sense to you,” she says, waving her hand dismissively. “You don’t know what lengths people will go to when they’re in love.”
Nausea bubbles inside my stomach, curdling like spoiled milk. It propels me forward, my interest in hearing what she has to say dwindling completely, as it starts to feel like she’s ramping up to a sob story, just to earn sympathy points.
As I reach the edge of the bed, I bring my hand up, lashing through the air with a single pump; my palm cracks against the yellowed skin of her cheekbone, and she lets out a cry, holding her forearm up to block me.
“That’s for trying to wreck my marriage,” I say, rearing back to land another slap on the same cheek. My hand vibrates with the impact, tingles shooting up to my fingers, my print quickly blossoming on her skin. “That is for ruining my childhood, and trying to ruin my adulthood.”
She tries to push me away, but I shove her hand back, curl my fingers into a fist, and whip my knuckles at her face, not even wincing from the immediate onslaught of pain that radiates up my arm.
“And that,” I sneer, shaking my hand out as she chokes on a tooth dislodged by the contact, “is for Kal. You don’t hurt the people you love. You don’t go out of your way to make them suffer.”
Walking to my old bookshelf, I put a couple of trinkets from Nonna in my bag, grab the important files—birth certificate, social security card, and other essential items for starting over—tucked away in a secret compartment in the closet, and head for the door, ignoring her tears the way she ignored mine for years, swapping comfort for criticism every chance she ever got.
“You used to call Kal Hades incarnate,” I say over my shoulder, pausing with one foot out the door. “I get it now. You wanted him to be the villain in your story, so you dressed him up as one. Painted him as a monster, when really, all he ever wanted was a little bit of unconditional love.”
I pull my new phone out, unlocking the screen and pulling up the draft email I have, waiting for me to press send. After spending the entire first few days after the recital writing down my feelings, I began writing down other things, too.
Everything I knew about Ricci Inc.
“I used to want that from you, too.” I adjust a couple of the finer points, adding in more incriminating evidence, and push send. “But then I realized, monsters aren’t capable of returning love. And the longer you spend chasing it from someone who cannot ever give it back, the more of a monster you become in turn.”
Spinning on my heel, I pass through the door, content in my soul with the way I leave her there, knowing the sun is about to set on the entire Ricci empire.
