Her Ghostly Embrace (Lockwood Coven #1)

Chapter 1 Gia

ONE

GIA

Everything unraveled the day Gianna Balzano found out her Aunt Susan died. First of all, she didn’t have an Aunt Susan.

“Yes, you do,” said the man on the phone. “I can explain. She was related to you by blood on your father’s side—”

Gia spoke over him. “Sorry. You’ve got the wrong number.” She scrubbed a hand over her face, more concerned with her killer headache than anything this guy had to say. Dealing with bullheaded arrogance was a waste of what little energy she had.

As if she weren’t aware her father had no siblings.

“I’m not mistaken,” the man said with careful patience. “You’re exactly who I need to speak to, Miss Balzano. Susan Lockwood was very clear in her final wishes. I’m sorry to bring you news of her passing, especially if this is the first—”

“No, you listen. I don’t have any aunts or uncles.” How dare he lie about someone’s death, offering pretend condolences? Gia sat upright in bed, and her head throbbed, vision tunneling for a split second. “How did you even get this number?”

Whoever the hell this guy was, he’d called her private cellphone. Very few people had Gia’s number, and none of them would hand it out. They knew better than to risk the consequences.

Like the rest of her family, none of Gia’s personal contact details were publicly available, and she wasn’t involved in the Balzanos’ legitimate businesses, so no one could have found her that way.

But the man on the phone knew she was a Balzano, meaning he had an angle.

Everyone surrounding her family had an angle. Ambitions. Some sort of scheme.

“Gianna,” the man said, his voice turning tender even as it betrayed a hint of steel. “I’m not talking about your father, Franco, I’m talking about Jeffrey. Your biological—”

Gia hung up.

Her hands shook as she blocked the number, and she couldn’t tell if it was from anger or the sheer force of her headache. Probably the headache. Weirdos trying to get to her family through her wasn’t exactly new. It had just been a while since she’d dealt with anyone like this.

Gia turned off her phone and lay down, pulling the blankets over her. She’d had one of her episodes last night and needed rest.

With a sigh, she pulled a small bottle from her nightstand drawer, fished out a pill, and swallowed it with water. She closed her eyes and waited for it to kick in.

Gia’s migraines were of a rare intensity and often led to blackouts in her memory.

Her triggers were variable and hard to predict, often leaving managing the aftermath of a headache as her only course of action.

After what happened last night, she’d be exhausted and jittery for the rest of the day at least. Overexertion wouldn’t do her any favors.

As happened far too frequently, Gia couldn’t remember anything after last night’s migraine had set in.

Salvator had said she’d retreated to her room and slept, so at least she hadn’t passed out in the library or somewhere else embarrassingly public, like the time he’d found her slumped at the kitchen table.

Gia strained to remember going to her room. All she could recall was walking through the south wing of the house, past the library and her father’s office, on her way to the home gym.

So much for her plans to get on the exercise bike.

Eventually, the pill kicked in and her head cleared. She should tell Salvator about the strange phone call so he could look into it, but again, that required energy.

Gia rolled over and clutched a pillow. Susan Lockwood.

There was something familiar in the name now that Gia wasn’t so distracted by pain and the presumptuous nature of the man on the phone.

Lockwood wasn’t a common surname as far as Gia was aware.

Where had she heard it? Maybe she’d read it in a book.

She fell into a half-doze as her mind ran in circles around the name.

Lockwood…

Gia’s tired eyes flew open, and she froze. Lockwood wasn’t the only familiar name the man had mentioned. Jeffrey. The mysterious Susan’s brother, Jeffrey Lockwood.

That’s the name of the man who tried to kidnap me.

Gia’s heart pounded, but for once, her head gave her no trouble.

An old memory surfaced, one Gia had pushed away for years.

A sensation like a scratching fingernail dragged down her spine, and the smell of pine trees hit her out of nowhere.

She’d been small, only five, on a day out at the park with her nanny and then… a feeling of dread. That was it.

It wasn’t much of a memory, but who could blame her for repressing a day that had started with an attempted kidnapping and ended with something far worse?

Gia tried to bring up other details, but couldn’t. The only thing that rang clear was the name ‘Jeffrey Lockwood’ as it echoed through the cavernous halls of her mind.

Was she remembering correctly?

Gia recalled the story of that fateful day more than the actual event. Not that her family ever talked about it now.

According to the stories Gia had been told, she’d been abducted by a man at the park, and when her mother found out, she’d hunted the kidnapper down to rescue her.

The kidnapper and her mother had both died in the resulting fight.

Luckily, Salvator had been there as backup, along with some of her father’s other men.

They’d rescued Gia and brought her home.

Gia hadn’t thought about any of this in a while, and guilt immediately filled her.

When you were the daughter of a crime boss, you became desensitized to a certain amount of violence, but that wasn’t why she’d done her best to never revisit this subject.

She hardly remembered her mother, and the pain of losing her had only been made worse by the rest of her family’s determination to act like it had never happened.

Franco Balzano hadn’t run Ashton Lakes then, and he hadn’t wanted to talk about what happened—it must have been painful—but he’d indulged Gia more when she was little and answered her questions. To a point.

Surely she had the man’s name wrong. This subject had been closed for a long time. No one had mentioned Letti Balzano in any real capacity since Gia was about ten. Could she really expect to remember what her father had told her fifteen or more years ago?

Now she considered it, Gia didn’t actually remember her father telling her who had taken her and killed her mother. Not by name. She’d heard the name ‘Jeffrey Lockwood’ murmured between her father and his men while she’d been crouching outside his office door after they’d moved into the big house.

She’d been a terrible little spy as a child, but of all the things she’d overheard, this stuck out, and for some reason, she was convinced it had to do with that horrible day at the park.

But why the hell was someone calling and claiming the man’s sister was her aunt?

Gia turned her phone on. A voicemail from a restricted number popped up. She ignored it and called her brother.

He picked up after two rings. “Hey, sis,” Marc drawled. “How are you feeling? Okay?”

So he’d heard about her latest episode. “I’m fine.”

“You don’t have to pretend with me, G. Want me to bring you anything? I’ll be at the house in about an hour.”

He wasn’t home? Gia had called because she didn’t feel up to crossing the sprawling estate to her brother’s room. “What are you doing?”

Marc sighed. “Nothing. Supervising. You know. Want something from Antonio’s? It’s on my way, and I’m guessing you haven’t had lunch.”

Gia gritted her teeth.

She didn’t understand why her brother and father half-heartedly shielded her from the less savory parts of the family business.

Supervising. She knew who the Balzano family was and what they did.

The drugs. The guns. The money. The people who disappeared.

Gia had no choice but to be a part of organized crime, even if she was spared from getting her hands dirty.

So why the lackluster attempts to keep her in the dark?

Were they playing along with her disinterest?

Gia wasn’t proud to be a Balzano. She had no interest in her family’s power and didn’t condone what they did, but she was helpless to stop any of it.

People who disagreed with her father died.

There was no leaving the family unless you were zipped in a body bag.

Gia’s stomach turned. “Yeah, sounds good, Marc. See you soon.” She hung up.

In a body bag. Like her mother.

Gia shook her head. Why was she thinking about it like that? Her mother hadn’t tried to leave. The kidnapper had killed her.

The man her mysterious caller claimed was her biological father.

Oh, god. Had her mother been trying to leave?

Gia rushed to the bathroom, unsteady on her feet as her head throbbed with renewed vengeance. She made it, pulled back her hair, and lost the meager contents of her stomach into the toilet.

When she’d heaved herself dry, she slumped against the wall, the cold tiles giving her chills through her thin sleep shorts.

She shouldn’t believe the random caller.

There was no reason to think Franco wasn’t her biological father or that her mother had cheated.

Letti Balzano hadn’t betrayed the family.

Gia didn’t want to believe it, but she was cold and clammy, like she’d been hit with a sudden fever, her body telling a disturbingly different story than the one she had been fed all these years.

Another memory surfaced, much clearer than the day at the park.

“I’ve seen Ma with that man before,” Marc had said, tucked away in a blanket fort with Gia. He’d seemed so big, ten years old to her five.

“What man?”

“The one who took you.”

“He didn’t take me,” Gia had objected.

“He did.” Marc grabbed her arm and squeezed. “You didn’t want to go with him. Father said he took you.”

“Okay,” Gia agreed, trying to pull her arm free.

Marc didn’t let go. “Did you see Ma with him before?”

“Yeah.”

Marc’s hold tightened, and he looked scared. “Don’t tell Father. He’ll be angry.”

“Okay.” Gia’s eyes watered. She wanted to leave the blanket fort. Everyone had been so angry lately, but Marc wasn’t usually like this.

“Good,” he agreed, releasing her. “Sorry. Let’s play.”

Gia wasn’t sure how accurate the memory was. She certainly didn’t remember the man now, let alone her mother meeting with him. But the conversation with Marc was long enough ago that it was before her migraines began, so perhaps she could trust it.

Had Marc really seen the kidnapper, the supposed Jeffrey Lockwood, before the kidnapping? With their mother? He’d been aware enough of what that meant to keep it from their father.

Was this the reason no one ever talked about Letti Balzano? Not out of respect for their father’s loss, but due to fear of invoking his rage?

Gia closed her eyes. This was ridiculous.

She shouldn’t let some faceless guy’s lies get under her skin.

She was probably twisting her memories to fit the seed of doubt the call had planted.

It wasn’t as if she wanted to be related to Franco Balzano.

She was seeing what a deep, hidden part of her wanted to see.

Wasn’t she?

Gia grabbed her phone and played the voicemail.

“Hello, Gianna. This is your Aunt Susan’s lawyer again. Before you delete this, please listen. Your aunt has left her entire estate to you, including documentation regarding your parentage. You need to know the truth. Call me.”