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Alister looks at with me with sad eyes and a tight jaw as the irony settles between us. I came to him because I believed his father killed my mother, or at least ordered the hit. I believed him to be the only person who could help me learn the truth. And yet, the truth is, my mother’s family,my family, may be responsible for the deaths of Alister’s mother and sisterandresponsible for the recent attacks against Sophia. I can only imagine Alister’s father fought to the learn the truth behind his wife’s murder just as fiercely as Alister has fought to bring Cara’s killers to their knees. And yet, despite their efforts, it is I who has brought Alister face-to-face with the truth, just as he has me to mine.
I reach out to him, placing my hand on his cheek as if I may relieve some of the tension in his features. “I’m sorry,” I whisper. He shakes his head and, interwining his fingers with mine, moves my hand to his knee.
“You didn’t blame me for the sins of my family. I won’t blame you for the sins of yours.”
I offer him a sad smile, thankful for his mercy. And yet, it does nothing to quench the guilt inside me. To think that my blood could cause such pain, could be so greedy and power hungry, disgusts me. I’ve wanted for so long to know my mother, to know where I come from, where she came from. But now? I’m starting to think Alister was right to turn me away. This truth isn’t one I want to believe. And yet, without it, I’d still have so many questions. Even still, I do.
“Tell me more,” I say, returning my attention to Josephine.
She nods and sips her tea. I suppose now she understands why we came to Boston, why Alister needed to meet with Avery Gallagher face-to-face. I’m sure she and Alister will need to discuss the extent of the attacks made against Sophia in private. But, for now, I need to know more about my mom, like who my dad was and how my mom ended up back in New Orleans with me if she was sent here to have me in secret.
“Valentina was furious with her family when she arrived. She and your father were in love. He wanted to marry her, even though he was only a few years older. Still a kid, just like us. But your mother’s family didn’t want her to marry Sandro.”
“Sandro? Is that my father’s name?” The name feels both foreign and familiar, like a stranger who has suddenly become so embedded in my soul, it feels like he’s always been there, just waiting for me to find him.
“It was what Valentina called him. Could be his name or a nickname. What was obvious was how much she loved him. She wanted to have you. She wanted to marry him. She wanted the three of you to be a family. And she, desperately, held out hope that you would be. She believed Sandro would stop at nothing to find her. She said he was from a family like hers. He had the money and resources to bring her home to him. And yet, months went by. Her belly grew. Each day Sandro didn’t come, her hope waned. By the time you were born, she’d given up on him. Her hope was quickly replaced with fear and determination. She knew that her father would come to take her back to New Orleans after you were born, forcing her to give you up for adoption. Despite her heartbreak and feelings of betrayal by Sandro, she loved you, more than anything. She didn’t want to give her father a chance to take you away from her, so she tried to run.”
“From here?”
Josephine nods. “You were only days old. She was in no condition to leave the warmth of this home or the care of the nurses my father provided her. And yet, she packed a bag in the middle of the night with the intention to flee. She didn’t even tell me of her plans. That is, until the next day, when I woke and found her still here. She was crying. It was the first time in her near nine-month stay with us that she realized she was our prisoner and not our guest. She lived with that knowledge for a year, repeatedly trying to escape but always failing. Finally, just after your first birthday, someone from Valentina’s family came for her.”
“You don’t know who?” I ask.
“No. I was at school when they came for your mother. When I got back, all that was left was a note. She thanked me for being her friend during the hardest time of her life. She said she was returning to New Orleans with her uncle. She said she knew this day would come. She was sad to leave but her uncle agreed to let her keep you. She said it would be better than living as a prisoner.”
Tears fill my eyes as I imagine my mother, at only sixteen, being turned away by her own family, forced to live and give birth in a stranger’s home, and, even more so, trying desperately to flee into the cold New England night—all for me and because of me.
“But she was a prisoner,” I say then, biting my lip to keep it from quivering.
“What?”
My eyes flash to Josephine. I want so badly to break, but I can’t. Not when there’s still so much I don’t know. So much she can tell me.
“I know I don’t have all the answers. Hell, I wouldn’t be here if I did. But my memories tell me my mother wasn’t welcomed back into the fold with open arms. I grew up in a dump, Josephine, a dump I was hardly ever allowed to leave. I didn’t go to school. I didn’t have friends. And my mother wasn’t any better off than I. She didn’t even shop for our own groceries, not that she had the money to. A man would bring them and place them on the counter. He would then seek payment by taking my mother into the bedroom we shared and doing godawful things to her. I didn’t know back then what went on behind that closed door, but I’m old enough now to understand—the sounds, the bruises on her body, the bulges between his and the other men’s legs. She was more a prisoner there than she ever was here. For ten years, she lived as such. Well, I guess nine, since my first year of life was spent here.”
“What are you saying?” Josephine asks. Her eyes widen and she leans forward, gripping the edge of the table.
“My mother was murdered when I was ten years old. No doubt it had something to do with her father’s secret plan for her, perhaps even his secret alliance with your family. She died for him!” I yell, slamming my palms against the table as I stand. So much for not breaking. “But he was nowhere to be found when she needed him the most because he is the one who banished her to Hell along with the uncle who retrieved her from here, luring her home under, no doubt, false pretenses. Her family wasn’t there for her because they didn’t care about her, about me. They used her as a whore for their personal gain. If she hadn’t hid me when they came to kill her, they probably would’ve done the same to me. And all for what? More money? More power? More influence? It’s all useless, just like you!”
“Ariana,” Alister says softly, reaching out to console me.
“You could’ve helped her. All those times she tried to run, you could’ve helped her,” I say, my anger giving way to more sadness and more tears. As I sit, I rest my head against the table and cry into the wood, and Alister rubs his hand up and down my back.
“I did. I did try, Ariana,” Josephine says softly. “Even when I hadn’t heard from your mother in nine years, I didn’t hesitate when she reached out to me, asking me to help her leave New Orleans for good.”
“What? What are you talking about?” I lift my head to face her, though I can barely see her through the tears. I wipe them from my eyes as Josephine stands and walks to the buffet server pressed against the wall. Atop it she finds a wooden box engraved with a depiction of red roses and returns to us, holding it. She gives the box to me, and I’m surprised by its weight. “What is this?”
“It’s everything I have left of your mother. She was a dear, dear friend, Ariana. I loved her. And I did do everything I could to help her. Am I useless? No. Did I fail Valentina? It seems so.” At that, my brows crinkle. Josephine nods toward the box, prompting me to open it. Inside I find a gun, the source of the unexpected weight. Yet, my attention quickly shifts from it to the passports, money, letters, pictures, even the little stuffed elephant toy my mother must’ve left behind in her rush to return to the city that did nothing but abuse her.
“Most of what you’ll find is from your mother’s time here. There are pictures of her when she was pregnant with you and of you after you were born. It was the early ages of modern technology, and I’m pretty sure my father tracked all my online activity, so all that was safe to use was an old Polaroid camera I found in our basement. Valentina wanted to have the photos to share with Sandro when he came for her.”
“Why would she leave these?” I ask.
“She was afraid my father or our guards would find them if she kept them herself. She assumed my father was aware of her family’s plan to make her give you up for adoption. She didn’t want to take any chances that they may be destroyed, so she had me keep them safe for her. After she left, I found the elephant toy underneath her bed. I kept it to remind me of you.” Her icy eyes fill with tears as she smiles. She really did care about my mom, didn’t she?
“What I think you’ll find most interesting are the passports and the letter just beneath them,” she says, redirecting her attention from me to the box. My cheeks tighten with emotion as I move past the passports to get to the letter. I want so badly to look at them and the picture of my mother I know they must hold. But it’s something I think I need to do in private, that way I don’t have to hold back my emotions. Though as I open the letter and run my finger over my mother’s handwriting for the very first time, my emotions overtake me just the same.
“She wrote to me nine years after she left Boston. I hadn’t heard from her since. Every day I think of how lucky we were that I found her letter before my father. Though, as it turns out, he still managed to thwart your mother’s plans.” I press the letter to my chest, using it to channel my mother’s spirit while Josephine continues. “Her letter was short and vague. All that was clear was that she needed my help. Knowing the world I belonged to, she tasked me with having passports made for the two of you. She also asked for money, an unregistered weapon, and, if possible, means to flee the country. She didn’t say why she needed to leave or what the past nine years had been like for her. I had hoped to learn more when I made my way to New Orleans with the items. She’d set a date, time, and location in her letter. It was a spot in Audubon Park overlooking the water.”
