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“We are close and always have been. But I’ve been wondering if Aloysius heard something that he shouldn’t have.”
“Like what, though?”
“Like I’m not our father’s rightful heir and successor.”
I went very still. “What do you mean? You’re the oldest son, so everyone knew when your father passed away that you were the one who would take over his position as Underboss.”
“I was the oldest son, but I wasn’t my father’s son.”
I went cold. “I don’t understand…”
“My mother was pregnant by someone else when she married my father. Neither of them knew until after the marriage. My father didn’t throw her out; instead, he brought me up as his own son. My real father was an associate of the Fratellanza, but he never knew that my mother had become pregnant by him. My parents told everyone I was a honeymoon baby and that I’d been born two months premature. I was a small baby, so apparently no one questioned it.”
“Your father did that?” I asked in disbelief. Made Men were notoriously proud, not to mention totally obsessive about the purity of their bloodline.
“Yeah. He was already in love with my mother by the time he found out.”
“When did you find out?”
“When my father was on his deathbed two years ago. He’d been really ill for a couple of months by then. I don’t know if it was all the painkillers making him less inhibited in what he said or whether it was a genuine need to unburden his concerns, but he told me everything.”
I was completely stunned. When I’d felt that Lorenzo was distant and closed off, I never imagined that he was keeping a secret like this from me. “What did he say to you?”
“He said how even though I wasn’t his son, he was proud of me and knew I’d make a good Underboss. He told me that he didn’t want me to ever find out about my parentage from anyone else and that he wanted me to never doubt my own strength and capabilities. He also said that no one else could ever know the truth because, if they did, it would destabilize the whole Fratellanza. The whole organization is built on bloodlines and loyalty. If anyone found out that he was weak enough to let his wife get away with such a betrayal and allow a bastard son to take over from him, people would start to question how strong the organization’s internal leadership really was.”
“Perhaps if your father hadn’t been an Underboss, then it wouldn’t have mattered so much,” I suggested. “Did Aloysius know about this too? And since then, he’s been hostile toward you?”
“No, my parents never told Aloysius. My father made my mother and me swear to him that we would never tell him. He was afraid of what it would do to our family if Aloysius ever found out that he’d been cheated of his rightful inheritance of being Underboss.”
“But Aloysius found out somehow?”
“The day my father told me in his bedroom, I thought I heard someone outside the room. But when I checked, no one was there. I didn’t think any more of it—not until the last six months or so. I’ve sensed something different within Aloysius, but sometimes it’s hard to tell if I’m imagining it or if it’s really there.”
“Lorenzo, I’m one hundred percent certain that the police officer didn’t see my ID and didn’t know my name through that.” I repeated my assertion in the hope that it would persuade him to take my suspicion about Aloysius seriously, which was even more plausible given what he’d just told me. “Do you believe me, Lorenzo?”
I held my breath, waiting for his reply.
“Yes, I believe you. Because I love you and I trust you, Anni.”
I stilled, before slowly smiling at him. “You telling me that you love me doesn’t surprise me—because I’ve felt it, and because I love you too. But I’m still not sure if you trust me yet.”
“I trust you, Anni. It’s taken a while, but I do trust you. I need to deal with Aloysius first, and then we’ll sit down and talk.”
I nodded. I desperately wanted to talk to him about everything, but I knew he would be distracted until the issue with the leak was resolved.
“I want to bring down all the barriers between us, Anni—all the barriers that could get in the way of my love for you.”
My heart lifted knowing that he loved me and that he trusted me. He’d trusted me enough to tell me of his illegitimacy and that he wasn’t the rightful Underboss—something that was at the center of his life and defined the very person he was.
And even more importantly, I knew now that he loved me, in the same way that I loved him. And he was no longer afraid to admit it.
CHAPTER 50
LORENZO
Talking to Anni made me feel a sense of overwhelming relief.
I’d had a choice to either put the organization and my role as Underboss first, or to tell Anni the truth so that together we could work a way out of this mess.
