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“I wasn’t handling business. Well, I was but it was personal business.”
“What are you saying, Teo?”
“I didn’t plan to tell you now, like this. Should I pull over?”
“I don’t know. Maybe? I guess it depends on how bad the news is.”
I had hoped that he would say it wasn’t a big deal and keep driving but instead, he gave a nod and pulled onto the side of the road before unbuckling so that he could turn to face me.
“Before I saw you again at that meeting with Gio and my father, Gio found out that he was going to be married to the future donna Monticelli and that’s all I knew of you. He wasn’t happy about it. He wanted to blow off some steam, so I tagged along to make sure he didn’t take things too far.”
I listened quietly, only nodding every now and then so that he knew I was listening.
“I made a point to only drink two drinks while I was there. That’s why the next day, when I woke up with a massive hangover, and little memory of my night, I was suspicious.”
“You’d been drugged?”
“I suspected Gio had slipped something into my drink, but I couldn’t prove it. There wasn’t any real need to. He was my brother, and he was going to be my don. It was my own fault for not keeping a better eye on my drink.”
“Still, I can’t believe that he would have drugged you. And why would he?”
“He was always complaining that I was wound too tight and that I should relax. I guess maybe he thought he was helping me cut loose.”
“That’s still not a good reason.”
“Oh, I know. I don’t pretend to understand why my brother did the things that he did.”
“But I don’t understand, what does this have to do with anything?”
“While we were in Corsica I was contacted by a woman who was there that night. She even sent a picture of me and her at the club.”
“Why was she contacting you all these months later?”
“She’d seen our wedding announcement in the paper.”
“What did she want?”
“To meet with me. She claimed she had something important to talk about.”
“And that was her at the bar?”
“No. That really was just a solicitation that I ignored.”
“Okay, then you didn’t meet with her?”
“No, I met with her.”
“So, you met with her then wound up having your picture taken with another woman hitting on you? That seems odd.”
Teo nodded and continued. “She told me that she was pregnant. And she claimed that it was mine.”
“You said that you didn’t remember sleeping with her?” I barely got the words out.
“That night was really fuzzy. If I did sleep with her, then I don’t remember it thanks to Gio’s roofie.”
“And you’re going to have a baby...with another woman.”
“No. She claimed the baby was mine but it’s not. That was the meeting I was going to yesterday and again today. I had someone run a paternity test on the baby to see if he or she is mine.”
