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Guilt fills me. “I’m so sorry, Kate.”
“I knew your family was strict, but I didn’t realize?—”
“I should have never befriended you. This is my fault.”
Lucia squeezes my hand. “It’s not your fault that your father and mother are terrible people.”
“But I knew what they were capable of… I…” Sorry didn’t seem to be enough. I hate that this woman who was nothing but kind to me is caught up in my family.
“I thought you’d gotten away,” Kate says.
I shake my head. “My father found the money. I still have my passport, though.” I remember it now and how I’ve hidden it in the mattress back at the compound. I wonder if anyone has found it. I doubt it. I can’t imagine Niko wouldn’t have confronted me about it.
“So… you had to get married?” Kate asks.
“Girl, you’re in for a story.” Lucia tugs Kate’s hand to have her join us on the bed. It makes me think of scenes on TV when teenage girls have a sleepover, something Lucia and I never had.
I explain how Niko took me during the wedding. Then I tell Kate he’s the one who paid for me at the club and the father of the babies.
Kate shakes her head. “God… this is crazy.”
I take her hand. “I know, and I’m so sorry that you’ve been brought into it. I never wanted that.”
“I can’t deny that I’m scared.”
“Liam is putting her into Witness Protection,” Lucia explains.
“I won’t see you again?”
Kate shakes her head. “Not my father, either, assuming he’s okay.”
Lucia surreptitiously touches the side of her nose twice, telling me that there is something off about Kate’s father. Is he in with one of the Families?
“I’m sorry.”
Kate shrugs. “It will be an adventure, right? Agent Rostova is nice.”
I look at Lucia. “That’s Liam,” she says.
“Is it odd that Niko’s men have Irish first names but Italian or, in Liam’s case, Russian last names?”
“Not in America.” Lucia smiles, but her eyes are still shadowed in pain.
“Is there something else going on that you haven’t told me?”
Lucia looks down. “You’ve been through a lot?—”
“So have you. You were in the accident. Dad took you, too.”
She nods. “I got a call today that Giuseppe died.” She sniffs, and tears drip down her face. It’s the first time I realize that she really cared for her husband despite the fact that she was essentially sold to him.
I sit up and put my arms around her. “God… and you’ve had to be here. You?—”
“It’s not a surprise. He was frail, sick for a long time. Since I married him, actually."
"Lucia, I'm so sorry." The words feel inadequate for the gravity of her loss.
"Thank you." She sniffs again. "It's strange. Ours wasn't a marriage of love—not at first. And not a traditional marriage, but…"
