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I know my words to be true, but my voice has lost its fight.
Dropping my palms in front of me, I see the stains of red. The blood that decorated my skin when I stabbed my father in the throat. I watched him die. I killed him. I did it for Lucy. I murdered him for Lucy.
“He told me. He told me.” I know Diego is still here, but the room around me keeps expanding. I’m standing in an empty space, the last moments of my father’s life playing out in front of my eyes. “He said I would end up like her if I questioned him. He killed her because she was pregnant with his baby. Hedidthat, heconfessed. I was in his office, and he attacked me. He could’ve killed me like he did her.Hesaid that. That’s why…that’s why he…I had no choice…he killed her.” I finally look at my husband. “You’re wrong.”
He has to be wrong. Otherwise, I killed my father without cause. My conscience has always remained clear because I had a justifiable reason for murder. If there is such a thing. Edoardo preyed on a seventeen-year-old girl and then disposed of her the second she threatened his empire. A scandal like that would’ve destroyed Chicago. Edoardo would’ve gone to prison, and the vultures would’ve circled.
Myself aside, five people know the truth, and two of them are dead. My brother and mother were there. They saw what I had done. Dino came after the fact, and my secret was spilled by my mother. But the moment he attempted to blackmail me and Salvatore for personal gain, Salvatore slit his throat and spat on his corpse. Charles was different. We entrusted him with a secret to secure our union. I didn’t like the idea, but Salvatore assured me that Charles had no reason to unravel us. He needed what the outfit could bring him. My late husband was skeptical about entering into an arrangement with a man who killed his own father for power. The truth alleviated his concern immediately. I was furious when Charles confided in CJ. It wasn’t his secret to tell, but CJ has never brought it up. I trust him to keep it with him until the grave.
Diego is different. He likes the powerful side to me, but I don’t know if he’d feel the same knowing I murdered my father in cold blood. I don’t want him to view me differently. He watched me take the life of a man who attacked me, but hesawthe attack. The slaying of my father is my word against a dead man’s. How can one ever be certain I was defending myself? The truth is I wasn’t. I attacked him. I took his letter opener and stabbed it into his neck. Not confident it was enough, I smashed him over the head with a crystal decanter and then slit his carotid artery and watched him bleed out. That’s not self-defense. Diego already doesn’t trust me completely. He believes me a liar. Imagine if he knew the truth.
Picking up his laptop, Diego opens the screen. “Look.”
I shake my head.
“Sia.Look.”
I glance at the screen showing admission forms and a thumbnail photo ofGiuliana Bianchior Lucy Snow as she was born.
A sob big enough to rack through my body and powerful enough to make me shake breaks from my lips. I cover my mouth. “No. Diego.” My chin wobbles. “Tell me you’re lying.”
“You didn’t know?” He slams the laptop closed.
“She’s still alive?”
He stares at me, dubious of my tears.
“Youreallydidn’t know? Look me in the eyes, Sia, and don’t lie.”
“She was my best friend,” I whisper. “Why would I do this to her?”
Falling onto my sofa, I try to make sense of what I’ve been shown.
I clench my hands into fists, my throat rips open, and I scream as loud as I can.
“I didn’t look for her,” I tell him. “He told me she was dead, and I was so concerned with hiding her death from Grace, whowaslooking, thatIdidn’t look.”
“You likely wouldn’t have found her.”
I shrug. “Maybe. But I should’ve looked. I’ve spent the past eighteen years afraid her body would be discovered, and it would somehow link us to her death, and I’d lose Grace as well. I never imagined she’d be found alive.”
“How do I fit into this, Sia? What does this woman and your mother and father have to do with me?”
He doesn’t know. He still doesn’t know.
I stand, brushing off my clothes and putting on a false mask of calm. “I need to see her.”
He grabs my arm. “You need to talk to me first.”
I look down at his hand, and he lets go.
“Sia.”
“I need to get Lucy out of that fucking hellhole.” I sniff and dab my fingers beneath my eyes, removing the stray tears clinging to my skin.
“We can do thatafteryou tell me what the fuck is going on.”
Ignoring him, I grab my handbag from beside the door and walk out of the house with bare feet.
