Chapter 45
Cecilia
Someone has poured sand into my mouth. I try to swallow to bring some moisture back, but it doesn’t bring the relief I was seeking. As I try to arch my head, my limbs, I realize I’m paralyzed. Awake but sleeping, a weight heavy on my chest.
A dream.
One of those you can’t escape until it’s over.
Hands grip me, carrying me somewhere out of my childhood bedroom. I see the walls of the palazzo, the darkness crawling with shadows everywhere. And these hands...I want to know who they belong to, but every time I look down, they disappear.
Here I am again, in my mother’s bedroom—that cursed white bedroom bathed in crimson blood.
I’m now standing by her bedside, the knife limp in my trembling hands.
It seems to have appeared out of nowhere.
My eyes shift across the room, expecting to see the shadowed silhouette coming at me from the corner.
It always does. Except right now, a disembodied voice speaks from somewhere behind me instead.
“You did this to her,” it says—a woman’s voice.
“W-what?” I whisper.
I shake my head, tears running down my face. I don’t understand. I was sleeping, and now I’m here, this knife in my hands…
“You killed her. So when your father comes, you apologize, lest he send you away to live with strangers. Do you understand?”
No. No, I don’t.
Hands grip my shoulders from behind, sharp nails digging into my skin. A familiar perfume reaches me, mixed with the metallic tang of my mother’s blood.
When I turn to face the person, a prickling sensation takes over my fingertips. I move them a little, and the dream tilts like a ship sinking in the ocean, disappearing under the water.
My eyes burst open. I’m awake.
I get up on my forearms, looking for my husband, my heart threatening to break out of my ribcage. When I see he’s not here, I push the sheets off me and hurry into the hallway.
“Mikhail!” I cry out. “Mikhail! Where are you?”
I step deeper into the hallway when a door slams open, loud and forceful. My husband rushes out like a demon summoned from the depths of hell. Merciless. Ready to kill.
“Sweetheart. What’s wrong? What happened?”
He hugs my face with both callused hands, tilting my chin up to look at him.
In those green, iridescent eyes, I can see our love staring back, the piece of my soul I offered him freely.
It recognizes me. It cares for me. It’s telling me I have a place in this world where I can find peace when everything around me is shattering.
His thumb brushes my cheek, his brows furrowed in worry, like everything else is irrelevant. When I don’t answer, he brings my head into his chest, wrapping his arms around me.
“I’ve got you. Just breathe.”
And I breathe. Effortlessly. Naturally. My heartbeat takes to his rhythm, as if we’re one and the same, my body melting against his like always.
“That’s so good, Cecilia. Good girl.”
That voice…those words…they slide down my spine like trickling water, slow and soothing and careful. I bring my hands against his chest, lifting my head and holding his gaze.
“I think—” I swallow. “I remember what really happened.”
Lies. Betrayal. Manipulation.
People have been doing it to me my entire life, and I let them. I always thought being the good girl they needed me to be would take me closer to my dream eventually. I was willing to sacrifice my agency for that.
But it has gotten me nowhere.
It wasn’t until Mikhail opened my eyes to what it means to live free, to have the courage to be yourself at the risk of losing whoever didn’t agree with that.
I still don’t have the full picture of what happened the night my mother was killed, of why it happened at all, but the idea that my six-year-old self would have done something so cruel has completely shattered in my mind.
My memory is still coming back in increments, the puzzle missing its center piece. But I know the story sold to me isn’t right.
“I had this dream,” I explain in my husband’s office, him standing against his desk. “It wasn’t really a dream, though. I think it may be what actually happened. And Ms. Donatello was there, whispering things into my ear, suggesting things that weren’t true.”
He nods, his jaw clenching. “Did you see her kill your mother?”
“No. I don’t know if she did it, but I think she may have brought me in once she was already dead. I felt someone carrying me into that bedroom.”
He curses. “I’m sorry, sweetheart, but that woman is a lying fucking cunt. I got some intel on her this morning, and now that you’re saying all of this, it all makes sense in my head.”
My hands tighten, fingertips digging into the cushion of the couch I’m sitting on. Hurt and disappointment squeeze my chest, but it’s nothing compared to the agony of believing I had caused my mother’s death. So, I welcome it.
“What did you find out? I need to know everything,” I tell him.
He nods, sliding his laptop to the edge of the desk, facing me. A PDF is opened with what looks like medical records.
“Four years before you were born, Lucia got pregnant from one of her targets. She was supposed to infiltrate his life and his business—to become his handler. The Matron, her employer at The Hive, tried to kill her for slipping up. That’s how Lucia got into that car accident that ended her career as a honeypot. But she survived.”
A baby? What? I never knew she had one. She never mentioned it.
“They struck a deal of sorts,” he continues. “The details are unclear. The Matron doesn’t leave many trails, but for some reason, she let Lucia live out the rest of her life as a piano teacher.”
I get up, inspecting the screen with a closer look. “Remus De Sanctis,” I read out loud. “Is that…?”
“Your brother. Half-brother. The target who got her pregnant was your father.”
My brows knit together. “What? But my parents…they loved each other. Why would he…?”
Mikhail shrugs. “Only he can answer that. When I left for Los Angeles, I met this guy. He’s planning to march into San Maleno with his soldiers and claim your father’s business as his only son.”
Brother. I have a brother…
“Lucia gave him away, let him grow up with a family of farmers in Sicily. When I went to see him, I saw this black scarf on his desk. I couldn’t clock it then, but I remember seeing her wear it.
It’s hers, which tells me she could’ve been the one who showed up in his life after years and told him who his father was. ”
I scroll the document, seeing a trail of flight details with Ms. Donatello’s name, in and out of Sicily—one from twenty seven years ago, and more recent ones from this year.
Nothing in between. There’s a police report of her car accident and names I don’t recognize.
They’re circled in red with explanations on the side, connecting them to this Matron person.
“Does my father know about this…baby?” I ask.
“I don’t think so. Remus started killing his Capi, leaving trails of the same message everywhere—Sempre Famiglia. Had your father known he had a bastard son, he would’ve clocked it already. But he has no idea who’s on his track.”
I shake my head. “So…what does this mean? That Ms. Donatello killed my mother because, what? She wanted to be with my father?”
“We don’t have proof she killed her. It could’ve been her, or she could’ve been covering for someone. Either way, we can make her talk now that we have this information. The important thing is, we know for certain you weren’t the one who did it.”
I take in a sharp breath.
“I don’t know if you remember this,” he continues, “but when you were little, you had an accident in the ocean. Hit your head on a rock.”
I do. I remember it vividly. “I stepped on a sea urchin and fell…” I admit.
“There’s another medical record there. It’s yours.”
I continue with the document, and my name appears next to the logo of San Maleno Hospital. It says I had a mild to moderate concussion, along with my age, place of birth, and other medical details that signal I was ready to be discharged that same day.
It’s the psychological examination on the next page, however, that makes me look up at Mikhail again.
“Recall variability might appear, depending on contextual cues,” I murmur, reading it out loud, my brows furrowed. “As in…me not remembering things correctly. And…”
He nods slowly. “Being susceptible to different versions of the events in your life.”
I swallow, looking up at the ceiling and stepping away from the desk. I run both hands through my hair, my legs leaden, so much that I reach for the couch again. But I don’t sit. I can’t.
“This is crazy,” I say, focusing on my breathing. “My entire childhood is a lie. I don’t…” I wipe away whatever tears are trying to flood my eyes. “Give me your phone. I want to call her.”
“She might’ve found out those documents have been accessed, if he was keeping track of that,” he says, handing it to me. “She might not answer.”
I tap the screen, recalling her number from memory. Then, pulse pounding in my ears, I set it to speaker, waiting for the first ring.
It never comes.
“We're sorry, the number you have dialed has been disconnected and is no longer in service.”