AllFreeNovel
Share Us
I clung to him and didn’t intend to let go, but Liam pulled me back, his hands resting on my cheeks, assessing the damage on my face and arm.
“I’m okay. Just some scratches. But you…” I trailed off, looking at his shirt.
“Not mine.” I couldn’t help the flinch that followed his words, even if the opposite would have been much worse. “This is me, Jamie. The real me.”
Liam’s face was etched with guilt, not for what he’d just done, but for how that affected me. There was fear in those pools of green.
Taking a long, deep breath, I eased my racing heart, thanking God for having someone like him in my life. Frank would never have saved me. He was the first to put me in harm’s way.
“I love you. The real you. Every part of who you are.” I confessed, echoing his words and kissing him again.
“You’re not going to run?”
“Only if you promise to catch me.”
“Explain, Lisa!” I heard Mr. Amato shout from behind me, breaking our love spell. I still couldn’t understand why Mrs. Amato hated me so much to hand me over to a sick bastard like Mr. Mercier.
“You weren’t supposed to find out about her!” The woman shouted. Her voice was laced with hate and pain in equal measure.
“You knew?”
“Of course I knew! I knew before she was born. I knew everything.” Her face grew red, her fury driving her words through her mouth with harshness. “I overheard your conversation with Liam at the wedding. You were never supposed to know she’s your daughter.”
I couldn’t believe my ears. Mr. Amato was my father?
“I let her live because she was a baby,” she continued. “I didn’t have it in me to end her life at the time. Big fucking mistake. I was pregnant with Amelia, for God's sake. But that’s over, she’s all grown now. And you? You were quick to replace my baby girl, weren’t you?”
“Don’t you dare talk about her. My Amelia was the light of my life, the best thing that ever happened to me.” Mr. Amato shouted back between greeted teeth, holding Lisa’s jaw in a tight grip.
“Of course. Just not from the right woman. You are replacing our daughter with a new one, just like you tried to replace me with Amanda. But you know what? It was so damn easy to drive her away from you. Even easier to kill her after she threatened to tell you about the baby.” She said with a sickening grin, freeing herself from his grasp.
“WHAT?” I shouted between tears while Liam held me in place, preventing me from walking over to them. I was finally realizing what was happening and why the Amatos were here. Enzo turned to me with pity mixed with a tender look in his eyes.
“Yes, you heard me! I. Killed. Your mother!” Mrs. Amato yelled towards me. “And you? It was supposed to be you that night at the 7-Eleven. Not my baby. Not my Amelia.”
“What did you just say?” Don Amato grew pale, forcing Mrs. Amato to look at him again.
Everyone stood as still as possible, hanging on every word Mrs. Amato was about to say.
“That little bitch was supposed to be working. She was the one who should have died that night. Amelia wasn’t ever supposed to be there. But your fucking genes just had to make them both look the same, didn’t they?”
“You killed her?” Don Amato’s voice was quiet, pensive, a slow burn of hellfire, getting ready to explode. “YOU KILLED OUR DAUGHTER?”
The girl from the store. The girl they thought Liam had killed. The reason why he was supposed to marry into the Amato family.
“No! She did.” Mrs. Amato insisted, motioning towards me.
“You sent those men into the store? You killed my baby girl.” He was in a loop, not wanting to believe what he was hearing. Without a warning, he drew his gun from the back of his pants and placed it against her head, his hand shaking out of control.
“Tell me you didn’t do it. Tell me it wasn’t you.”
“She was supposed to stay in Jacksonville with that sick fuck of a father. She was too close. She needed to die.”
“I AM HER FATHER.”
My throat was blocked with a giant lump I couldn’t swallow. He was my father. I had a sister who died in my stead.
“A tooth for a fucking tooth, Lisa.”
