Chapter 39
LENI
I blink at Mom, mouth agape. “You did what? Mom, do you even know what you’re saying?” For the first time since I got here, I’m scanning her eyes frantically, searching for that telltale glassy sheen. Did she somehow manage to sneak drugs in here? Is she completely out of her mind right now?
But her gaze is sharp. Clear. Devastatingly sober.
“Yes, Leni, I know exactly what I’m saying,” she says, her voice steady. “And no, before you even think it, I’m not high. Haven’t been since—since you came to get me at our old house.”
Jesus Christ.
She’s on her feet now, hands trembling as she starts pacing. The nervous energy radiating off her makes my skin crawl. “Your father wasn’t some heroic cop who got wrongfully fired, Leni. He was dirty. Corrupt to his core.”
My chest tightens. What? No. That can’t be true.
“He was in cahoots with the same criminals he was supposed to be arresting. Tipping them off about raids, feeding them inside information, all for cash. But here’s the twisted part—he was also giving information about them back to his colleagues at the police department.
Playing both sides.” Her voice drips with disgust. “His partner finally caught on and that’s when he was fired.
That’s why we never got a pension, why we never got anything. ”
The air feels suffocating suddenly. I mean, yeah, I knew dad was dishonorably discharged, but I always thought it was some tragic mistake. Maybe he shot the wrong person during a case, or made a judgment call that went sideways. Not… not this.
“After they fired his ass, he went full time with those gangsters—that’s right around the time your husband and his friends started taking over the city.
” She’s still pacing, her voice getting more animated.
“It was all over the news back then. The gang members weren’t happy with this, so they sent your father to infiltrate his operation—spy on Romero for them from the inside. ”
She stops pacing and looks directly at me. “But what did your father do when he got there? He started playing both sides. Again. Never learned his lesson the first time—the little rat.”
She pauses, as if expecting a response, but I can only stare at her numbly, lips parted. When I say nothing, she runs a hand through her thinning hair and resumes her pacing.
“Well, surprise, surprise—both sides figured it out. And neither was happy. Romero sent a hitman after him; the gangsters sent their own men. Your father was trapped with nowhere to run.”
Her hands ball into fists at her sides, and her mouth twists into something ugly.
“You were in the seventh grade then. Remember that day? That idiot had the nerve to suggest I stay behind in our apartment while he went to pick you and Ethan up from school. Said he’d take you to safety because we might be in danger if the people after him couldn’t find him. Swore he’d come back for me.”
She lets out a bitter scoff. “As if I was a fool. I had started using opium by then—just little amounts here and there to ease my stress, nothing serious yet. He tried to use that as leverage to get me to take the fall for him. No way in hell was I going to do something like that. My babies needed me.”
My babies. Something in my chest cracks at the possessive fierce love in those words.
“But he was desperate… dangerous. I was so scared, Leni. Scared he’d try to hurt me if I argued.
So I played along. Told him I’d stay put.
And then—” she swallows hard, her voice lowering, her restless steps coming to a halt.
“Then I slipped some of my opium into his food. Maybe too much. He got knocked out… And while he was out, I grabbed a kitchen knife and drove it straight into his chest.” She mimes the motion, her hand slicing downward through the air.
Oh God. She really did it. My mom really killed my dad. My stomach flips violently, the world tilting around me as she goes on.
“I dragged his sorry corpse to the car and drove him to those gangsters' den. Walked right up to them and said, ‘Here’s the rat who’s been playing you. I’ve served him up on a silver platter.
Leave my children and me out of your mess’.
I let them take credit for his death, then I packed us up and moved us away from that house. Just in case.”
My brain is short-circuiting. I’m still staring at her, trying to process the words coming out of her mouth, while she fidgets like she’s waiting for something—anything—from me. But I have no words.
“Then the guilt came.” Mom’s shoulders sag, and for the first time, she looks fragile again.
“I didn’t expect it to hit me so hard, but it ate me up so badly I couldn’t function.
That’s when I started using more and more, until it completely took over my life.
And now…” she gestures helplessly at the rehab center around us, “…here we are.”
And suddenly, the puzzle finally clicks into place.
“You filed a missing person’s report,” I murmur, trying to work my head around that.
She knew he was already dead. Knew exactly where his body was.
But she filed that report anyway, made me have a little hope deep down that maybe, just maybe, he was still out there somewhere.
Even after the police declared him dead, part of me always wondered if he’d just run. Why would she do that?
“I had to.” She’s matter-of-fact again. “Would have looked suspicious if I didn’t. You and Ethan were so young, I couldn’t risk becoming a suspect and leaving you orphans.”
So logical. So meticulous. So calculated. I stare at her in disbelief, and she gives me this twisted, self-deprecating smile. “But maybe I should have just turned myself in back then. Maybe you two would have had better lives without me dragging you down.”
“This is… a lot to take in,” I murmur through cold lips. It’s been such a chaotic twenty–four hours. Getting shot at. Discovering Romero hired a hitman on my dad, thinking he killed Dad, and now finding out it was my own mother who did it.
What a mindfuck.
He broke the omerta. But I didn’t kill him.
Those were Romero’s words. At the time, I thought he meant he wasn’t the one who shot him even though he gave the order. But now I’m realizing he probably meant something else entirely—that he genuinely wasn’t the one who killed Dad. Does that mean he knows who actually did it?
I shoot up from the bench. “Does anyone know you did it?”
Mom frowns at my sudden intensity. “Other than Mikkel Verona, the leader of the group who was more than willing to take the credit for his death, nobody knows.”
That means Romero thinks this Mikkel guy did it. Relief floods through me, but only marginally. This whole situation is so fucked up. I’m caught between this reality of protecting my husband from my mom and my mom from my husband. My heart feels torn in half.
“I need to go.” I turn towards the door.
“Wait, Leni, please!” The desperation in Mom’s voice makes me glance back. “You understand why I had to do it, don’t you? You understand I didn’t have a choice?” Her face is strained with anxiety, searching my expression for some kind of approval or forgiveness.
And despite everything—despite the lies, the manipulation, the years of addiction that followed—I nod.
“I understand.” Because fucked up as it is, I do understand.
I don’t have any kids of my own yet, but I know with absolute certainty I would tear apart anybody who tried to hurt Ethan or Romero—no matter who.
Even family.
I leave the rehab center with far more answers than I expected, but also with my entire world upended, my truth shifted. What do I do now?
“We’re here.” Logan’s voice pulls me back to the present, and I blink in surprise that we’re parked in front of Mom’s house.
I don’t want to be here. Alone. I should have brought Lady Heathcliff with me, but I wasn’t really thinking straight last night.
My brain was too scrambled to make rational decisions.
All I want is to go back home to my husband and my cat.
I hesitate. The words are right there, crowding my throat—Take me back to Romero’s house—but in the end, I swallow them down and get out of the car.
I still have so much to think through before I can decide what to do next. Whether Romero killed my dad or not, he still ordered the hit. And he knew who I was this whole time. He would have connected the dots about my dad, but he kept it from me.
I thank Logan and trudge up the front steps, my arm and head throbbing in perfect, miserable rhythm. What I need is sleep. Forty-eight hours of unconsciousness to let my brain process this catastrophe.
I close the door behind me, locking it, then freeze.
The artificial plant in the corner—that’s not where it was when I left.
“Ethan?” I call out, frowning as I walk into the living room. He should be on campus. What’s he doing here? “Ethan!”
Nothing.
Absolute silence.
An ominous chill creeps down my spine, and suddenly I know, as surely as the sun rises, that someone is inside this house with me. And if Ethan isn’t answering, if it’s not my brother, then—
Oh, fuck.
My throat closes up tight as I glance at the door.
I need to be smart about how I play this.
Whoever is in here most likely has bad intentions and won’t just let me leave —or they would’ve announced themselves by now. My arm throbs with a painful ache that takes my breath away. Is it the person who shot at me? Are they here to finish the job?
Every instinct I have is screaming at me to run. Turn around, throw open the door, and sprint as far away as possible.
Run. Run. Run.
But I might get shot in the back of the head if I do.
I have no doubt my uninvited guest is nearby and probably watching me right now, waiting to see what I’ll do.
My pulse is hammering so loud in my ears I can barely think straight. Trying to look casual, I slip my hand into my purse and, without taking my phone out where they can see it, I dial Romero’s number.