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Josephine nods. “And you. You were born here, Ariana, in this very house.”
“How is this possible?” I ask, though Josephine’s eyes don’t leave Ariana.
“Come,” she says. “We have much to discuss.” At that, she turns her back on us both, though her henchmen make it clear they have no intention of letting me follow.
“I’m not going anywhere without Alister,” Ariana shouts. “Either pardon him or you’ll have to kill us both.” Ariana’s waited her entire life for the answers Josephine is willing to give. Would she really walk away from the truth for me?
“Very well.”
21
“Stay close.I don’t trust her,” Alister says, pulling me back to his side. Too dazed to trust my own judgment, I happily sink back beside him as we, changed out of our formal wear and into Josephine’s casual offerings, follow behind her through her luxurious Irish-inspired townhouse. My heart beats quicker than it should as sweat dampens my palms. As Josephine Cullen, the head of the Irish mob, prepares to tell me of her relationship with my late mother, I feel I understand what Alister must’ve felt coming face-to-face with Gallagher and the brotherhood. The anticipation is killing me, and yet, the confusion pulsing through my head is just as painful.
I’ve known all along that the deeper I dig into my mother’s past, the more complicated my view of her may become. She wouldn’t have been murdered by the head of a criminal organization without cause. If my mother knew Josephine Cullen, then she was likely working for the Irish mob against the Amatos, which is more than enough reason for Alister’s father to order the hit against her. I can’t say I blame her for wanting to destroy the Amatos’ drug trafficking business, but, aligning herself with the Cullens isn’t exactly innocent. It makes me wonder how deep her roots in organized crime went, and how much of what she endured, what I witnessed as a child, was her choice.
Josephine leads us into a formal tearoom, and I look up at Alister. His eyes focus sharply on Josephine’s back. Yet, feeling the weight of my gaze, he slides his fingers through mine, giving my hand a squeeze. He lets me know he’s here with me and not in the deepest, darkness parts of his mind that seemed to consume him while facing Gallagher. My blood still races at the thought of what could’ve happened if Alister hadn’t fought them off, but that isn’t the only memory that has me so wired I feel as if I may faint.
Whatever you think you’re going to do to me, it’s already been done.
At that, I lower my eyes to the floor, gripping on to Alister’s arm with my free hand to help steady me. It’s not that my encounter with Gallagher and his men dug up the memories of my tragic past, as if they are so easily buried. The trauma I suffered as a seventeen-year-old girl at the hands of my foster father is always with me. It’s a piece of my story, just like my mother’s murder, that haunts me and yet has also made me who I am. What’s overwhelming isn’t the truth I’ve spent the past eleven years learning to live with. What scares me is that now Alister knows. He knows another one of my secrets, something no one else does. It makes me feel connected to him in a way I’m sure will only cause me pain. And yet, as he holds my hand, as he protects me against men who seek to harm me, as he stands by me in the face of news that may change everything for me, severing the connection I feel with him is the last thing I want to do.
“Please, have a seat,” Josephine says. Alister and I move toward the small wooden table centered in the room with black walls and large stained-glass windows overlooking some part of Boston, assuming we’re still in Boston. Alister lets go of my hand and pulls out my chair for me. I take my seat first. Alister second. Josephine sits last so that she is directly across from me. She then proceeds to fix herself a cup of tea using the delicate tea set separating us and her. “For you,” she says, reaching out to hand me the cup. It’s filled with black tea made creamy with milk and sugar. “I made it the way your mother used to like.”
At her words, my mouth falls open. All these years, I’ve only ever had a few memories of my mother to cling to. Most of them aren’t ones I like to remember. Perhaps that’s one of the reasons why I’ve worked so hard to learn the truth of not only why my mother was killed, but who she was. I want to know her. I want to know what music she liked, what her favorite flower was, where she grew up, did she ever fall in love? I want to know everything. And yet, as Josephine sits across from me, more aware of my own mother than I am, the sight of the teacup stings. It’s easy to fight for a ghost, especially one of a person you never really knew. You get to pretend they were perfect. You get to imagine the life the two of you could’ve had had things been different. The truth will shatter those illusions.
What if what Josephine has to say isn’t what I want to hear? What if my mother wasn’t a good person? What if she was no better than Alister’s father or Alister himself? And yet, hasn’t he shown me there is more to him than his blood and birthright? There is light in him just as much as there is darkness. If I can accept him, then I can accept my mom, even if she isn’t the mother I’ve wanted to believe her to be.
I reach out and take the teacup from Josephine, quickly setting it down in front of me before my shaky hands get the best of me. Josephine lowers her eyes, as if wondering how to begin. “Leave us,” she says to no one in particular. Though, quickly and quietly, her guards do as she says, closing the door to the tearoom behind them. She is as formidable as she is beautiful. Long fiery red locks surround her face, the perfect complement to her icy blue eyes. There are few wrinkles on her face, though there is an air of wisdom about her that suggests she’s older than me and Alister. If she knew my mother, perhaps they were about the same age. The thought makes me look at her closer as I imagine how eighteen years would’ve changed my mother, at least, the memory of her I have.
“I’m not sure where to begin,” Josephine says, redirecting her attention to making her own cup of tea. “I suppose I should start with an apology. I’m not sure what led to your encounter with Avery,” she says, giving Alister a quick glance before turning back to me. “But nothing warrants the treatment you nearly received at his hand. My men are loyal to a fault. As a woman leading an organization such as this, I face more than my fair share of threats. Avery had the best of intentions in sending a message, but, admittedly, he went about it the wrong way. I would never condone such an assault. For his actions, I apologize, and I thank you, Alister, for protecting Ariana.”
“You speak as if you know me,” I say, surprised by my interruption yet unrelenting.
“I did, a very long time ago,” Josephine says. She sips her tea as if it will give her strength. I do the same, bracing myself for what may come next. “When your mother, Valentina, was sixteen, she was sent by her family to stay here. She was pregnant.” Josephine nods, her eyes glazing over as if she’s remembering back. Oh, what I would give to share her memories, to see them for myself. “Teenage pregnancy is a taboo enough issue, especially when you come from a Catholic family. But, your mother’s family, who they were and the plans they had for Valentina, only made things more complicated.”
“What do you mean?” My brows crinkle as Alister wraps his arm around the back of my chair. I look between him and Josephine as she turns to me, confusion contorting her features.
“She doesn’t know? If she’s with you, then she must know,” Josephine says.
“Know what?”
Alister gives the slightest shake of his head, prompting Josephine to take a deep breath. She turns back to me. “Ariana, your mother was part of a powerful family in New Orleans, a family like mine, like Alister’s. I never knew her last name, but…she was Mafia, born and bred.”
“What?No.” I shake my head.
“It’s why she was sent here, so that she could have her baby, have you, in secret before returning to New Orleans to live out her responsibility to her family.”
“Responsibility?”
Josephine shakes her head. “I don’t think she knew what her family had in store for her. All she was told was that‘her father had other plans for her.’We were both only kids at the time. We didn’t know much about the business or even the customs of our organizations. Knowing now of the less than pleasant history between the Irish and the Italians, I know that Valentina’s family must’ve had some sort of secret alliance with mine. Or else my father never would’ve taken your mother in.”
“Not to mention, this would be the last place anyone from New Orleans would look for her,” Alister says. “The peace treaty between our families was only recently signed. All those years ago, the Amatos and the Cullens would’ve been the greatest of enemies even if not at war.”
“Wait. Wait.Just…slow down,” I say as frustration coils inside me. I look between Alister and Josephine once more as they both sit in silence, allowing me a moment to put the pieces together.
The idea of my mother being part of the Mafia baffles me, and yet it makes perfect sense. I always wondered how an innocent woman could get so caught up in the world of organized crime it would warrant a hit by the head of one of the most powerful bosses in the country. But if her family had some sort of secret plan for her and an alliance with a known enemy of the Amatos, then it would explain everything. My mother’s father,mygrandfather, was working to overthrow the Amatos from the inside. Perhaps he planned to use my mother to form some sort of an alliance with another crime family or even a criminal organization outside the Mafia. I know it’s archaic, even twenty years ago it would’ve been, but in the world of the Mafia, arranged marriages in exchange for alliances are common so long as the girl is a virgin. That’s why my mother’s family wanted to keep her pregnancy, keep me, a secret.
“Gallagher said that Joseph Cullen had it out for the Amatos for nearly twenty years,” I say, turning to Alister as realization finally dawns on me. “It’s possible that my mother’s family, then and now, are the ones who’ve been coming after yours this entire time.”
