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“It was safest for you, Mariella. For your mother, too.”
“I didn’t have a father,” I exclaim. “I had so many questions about who my dad was and why he wasn’t around. My friends went to father-daughter dances, their dad’s showed up for career day and field trips. They asked where my dad was, and I never had an answer. I would eventually lie and pretend he had an exciting job that took him away. I lied and said he was dead. Mom only ever told me he couldn’t handle a family. I didn’t understand. I blamed her. I was angry and sad.”
I’m full-on sobbing and yelling now.
“She was so sad. She tried dating. She never married. It was just me and her, and we struggled. And here you are in a massive mansion. You got a new wife? New family?”
He looks forlorn. “I have a wife. Never had kids.”
“You mean, after me.”
“Right. Only you.”
“Why get married at all? You left us because you feared for us. Supposedly,” I tag on. “Yet, you bring another woman into the life?”
“I’ve been married a couple times,” he admits. “But they’re all from families who are in this life. It’s what they’re used to. And if I’m being honest, I’ve never cared about or loved any of them the way I did your mother.”
“And me?” I ask. “You ever think about me in all these years?”
“I thought it was best if I didn’t check in too much. I knew I’d want to see you.”
I scoff. “Why now? Why…what does this have to do with anything?”
“It’s best if we bring Vicente back in, probably.”
I gesture to the door for him to go get him. While I wait, I pace behind the couch, tears dried on my cheeks.
They both enter the room and I stop and face them. “Just tell me everything.”
Vicente starts. “I had a vendetta. The former boss of this family had my mom shot in front of me. I didn’t know the truth until I was older, but it’s hard to kill the boss of any family. My father never had the chance. I knew I had to bide my time, but then the boss retired and Donati took over. In order to find who I was looking for, I needed something on Donati. That something was you.” He takes a breath, his eyes soft as he watches me. “I found out he had a kid, I found out who you were, and that’s where it begins.
“When we went to the restaurant that night, I needed him to see you with me. I had to re-introduce you to him and let him be aware that we were together. That you were mine. There’s no love lost between us. We’ve had bad blood, and I knew it would piss him off.”
“He threatened your life,” Donati says, earning a piercing glare from Vicente. “He told me he’d inform everyone of your existence. Once anyone knows you’re my kid, you become a target.”
I stare at Vicente.
“It was just a threat. I knew he’d do what I wanted him to do in order to keep you safe. But his caveat was that I leave you alone. He didn’t want you involved with me and this life. He left you for that reason alone. That’s why I ended things.”
“You broke things off with me so you could kill someone?”
“So I could avenge my mother’s death,” he states with finality.
The two of them stand on either side of me, waiting for me to say something, wanting me to forgive them and move on. This isn’t something easy to accept. My mind is reeling and my heart is breaking. I don’t have it in me to comfort the men who hurt me in the first place.
“I want to go home.”
They’re quiet for a few seconds, probably disappointed I don’t have more to say.
“Okay,” Vicente says.
“To my mother’s house.”
ChapterThirty-Seven
“Darling, what’s wrong?” Mom asks, waking me up.
When I got here in the wee hours of the morning, I used the key she continues to hide under a ceramic toad that sits in her garden between bushes. I flopped onto the couch and fell asleep.
