Chapter 33
33
AMARA
A little earlier
“I thought I might find you here,” a deep voice says, startling me and making me spin around in surprise. I blink at Lazaro’s father for a second, and then give him a small, guilty smile.
“I’m sorry, I know I shouldn’t have come back in here, but I just…I couldn’t help myself,” I say nervously. “I did make sure to close the door so no one would walk in, but?—”
“Do not worry, cara mia ,” Aurelio reassures me. “It would be hard to be in your salon and not want to look at things more closely, wouldn’t it? And your mind, it likes puzzles, yes? So, seeing this, you would want to see if there is anything else missed. Right?”
“Right,” I say softly. “Still, I probably should have asked before coming in here.”
He waves that away. “Do not worry about it, Amara. Now, what is it that you are looking at? Perhaps I can help?”
I’m a little nervous around Lazaro’s father. Sure, we’ve talked briefly, but never on our own, and it’s nerve-wracking to think I might say something to upset him and he might tell Lazaro to get rid of me. Lazaro might care for me, but I don’t think he would ever disobey an order from his father.
“Oh, uh, well, I’m not sure if I’m looking for anything in particular,” I admit. “I just wanted to have a look at those pinholes again and see if there was anything else that I didn’t catch before. But I haven’t found anything.”
“It’s been an eventful day, so don’t push yourself too hard,” he cautions me gently, moving to sit in the chair behind the desk. I’m off to the far side of the mural, and from this angle, it feels like he’s giving me plenty of space. Uh oh. I tense, but tell myself to keep it together. Even if he’s here to warn me off Lazaro, I can handle it. I hope.
No, no I can’t. Panic fills me, terrified that he’s about to rip away a part of me that is growing larger and larger by the day. “Are you here to warn me away from Lazaro?” I blurt out, turning to face him fully, clasping my hands tightly together in front of me.
Aurelio’s brow shoots up at my question. “Of course not,” he says firmly. “What brings this question up?”
I swallow hard, not sure how to answer. “I-I’m s-sorry,” I stammer out. “I just, I thought you were coming to tell me that you didn’t want me to be with Lazaro. Maybe you had someone else picked out for him or something. I don’t know. I just, I really, really care for Lazaro, and I?—”
“Amara,” he interrupts firmly, making me shut my mouth with a snap. “I can promise you that I very rarely get involved in the love lives of my sons. They are grown men, and Lazaro especially, knows exactly what he wants. He wants you, and I want my son to be happy. I want you to be happy. To be clear, I think you are perfect for my son. You are smart, innovative, and you are not afraid to stand up to him when he’s being a downright stubborn bastard. I am sorry if I’ve given you the impression that I don’t feel that way.”
I am struck with horror. Oh God, I’ve offended him. Oh no. Oh no, I have to fix this. “No, no!” I rush to tell him, taking a panicked step towards him and then stopping. “No, it’s not that, Mr. Cattaneo. You never have. Please don’t think I thought that. I don’t know where that came from, and I didn’t mean to offend you. God, I’m screwing this up.” I slap my hands over my face in embarrassment.
I hear the creak of the chair, and then two hands gently take my wrists and pull my hands away. He releases them and then smiles at me. A real smile, one that makes him look so much like Lazaro that I instantly relax. “ Cara mia , take a deep breath,” he urges. “You’re not screwing anything up. I am glad that I haven’t offended you in some way.”
“I’m sorry. I just, I have never had a partner or had to deal with their family. And yours is really wonderful, and I really like all of your sons, as well as Sofia. I wish I had that growing up. They all love and respect you, and I just know that if you didn’t like me, Lazaro would walk away. It’s selfish of me to ask that of you, but I really want to be with Lazaro. I have no idea what that will look like, but I know it with everything in me.”
“I only want you both happy, Amara. You know, wanting something for yourself does not make you selfish. I learned that recently myself. I loved, still very much do love, my wife, and when I lost her, it was like cleaving my soul in two. Being without her was nearly unbearable. Without my children, and the Carusos, I don’t know what I would have done. You and my son, you remind me of my wife and I. You don’t have her fiery temper, but you do have her stubbornness, her strength, and her heart.” Then he winks at me and grins. “And just so you know, if it comes down to choosing between you and my son, I will choose you over his annoying ass any day.”
I laugh, unable to help myself. “Thank you,” I say.
He shakes his head. “No need to thank me, cara mia . You are a part of the family, even if you don’t recognize it. Anything you need, I want you to feel comfortable to come to me. With anything. Understand?”
I swallow hard. He sees me as part of the family? How is that possible? He barely knows me. “Thank you,” I say shakily. What else can I say to that without bursting into tears?
“It is overwhelming to suddenly have a whole group of people at your back, isn’t it?” he says softly. I can only nod, my eyes filling with tears. He wraps his arms around me and hugs me close. I return his embrace, battling with surging emotions. “It will become second nature soon enough, cara mia ,” he tells me, rubbing my back comfortingly. “You will soon realize that you have so many people who are there for you. I will tell you the same thing that I told my children. Your family can be part of you by blood, but it’s also those that you welcome into your life and trust implicitly. The ones that you know will have your back no matter what. I want you to know that I will always be one of those people. My sons will be those people. Pietro and his boys, Nico, Dante, all of them will as well. Right now, it may not seem it, but it will be clearer once we get this whole mess figured out.”
“I always wanted a family,” I tell him, looking up at him. “I used to pray for mine to come and rescue me as a child, but by the time I hit my teens, I knew they weren’t coming. I guess I was wrong. It took a little longer, but they still came. I’m terrified that once this is all over, I’m going to screw something up. I don’t know anything about the mafia life other than what I’m seeing now.”
“It will come with time, cara mia ,” he assures me, releasing me. “And you will handle it beautifully. Sienna is already settling in, and you will too. You’ve only been here a few days, so you must not be too hard on yourself, hmm?”
I smile. “I’ll try. Thank you, Mr. Cattaneo.”
“Aurelio, cara mia ,” he corrects gently. Then he grins. “Perhaps you will give me a discount on a haircut and beard trim, yes?” He winks. “A family discount?”
I laugh, unable to help myself. Any remaining tension drains away. “For you, always,” I promise. “Though, I will have to charge your sons double to make up for it.”
Aurelio lets out a burst of laughter. “Triple it. Really make them pay.”
I grin. “It’s a deal.”
We lapse into a comfortable silence for a moment before Aurelio says, “I should probably get back to the boys. They are smart but easily distracted.” He shakes his head with a sigh. I open my mouth to respond to that when his phone rings. His expression quickly turns serious. “Lazaro,” he says briskly. I freeze with worry. I can’t hear what’s on the other end, but then Aurelio says, “Got it. Get back here quickly and we’ll get the doctor here to patch you up. Good job men,” and my worry turns to fear. Oh God, is Lazaro hurt? “He’s fine,” Aurelio assures me quickly. “One of the men has a small injury, nothing to be worried about. They’re on their way back.”
Despite his assurances, I can’t relax. Not until I see him for myself. “I’m coming with you,” I rush out. “Please.”
He nods. I leave the office space, waiting impatiently until Aurelio closes up the wall and we hurry out of the room. Aurelio barks orders in Italian to my two guards, who trail after us, and we make our way back to Nico’s office where all the other men are gathered and looking at something on Nico’s desk. I don’t know where the girls are; they all went off to do their own things elsewhere after the meeting earlier. “They’re on their way back,” Aurelio tells everyone briskly. “Lazaro and Massimo got more at Giovanni’s. Killed two of his sons and the other guards sent to stop them. Urso, get your things prepared to review the hard drives Massimo grabbed. We need to get them downloaded and searched before that bastard figures out a way to delete it all on us.”
“On it,” Urso says seriously, hurrying out of the room.
“Injuries?” Nico asks.
“One of our men has a superficial wound, but no others reported.”
“Good,” Pietro says. He looks at me and his expression softens. “Hello, cara .”
“Hi,” I say nervously. “I don’t mean to intrude, but I wanted to be here when Lazaro gets back.”
“Of course,” Pietro says with a smile.
The door bursts open, and the other girls come running in. “They found my mother’s diary?” Gia demands, staring at Nico.
“Yes, topolina ,” Nico soothes, wrapping his arm around her when she comes to stand beside him. Sienna moves to stand with Alessio, who is on the other side of Nico, her face a mixture of emotions.
“Have you read it?” Gia asks, her voice shaking. “Did she say anything?”
“We haven’t read much, topolina ,” he says. He lifts up two pieces of paper. “But these were inside, and we have our teams already trying to use them to find your sister’s identity.”
Gia takes them both and then looks at Sienna. “You don’t look like an Isabella to me,” she teases.
“What? Give me that.” Sienna takes the certificate Gia hands her. “Isabella Maria,” she says aloud. “I mean, I guess it’s pretty, but yeah, it’s not my favorite.”
“What about the other one?” I ask curiously.
“Arianna Sofia,” Gia reads out. “The date on this one is the same date as Matteo’s birthday, so this must have been his twin.” She looks at Nico. “You think you can find her with this information.”
“We do, cara ,” Aurelio answers. “We have our men on it. We’ll find her.”
Gia nods, accepting that, but I can see her doubt. I kind of understand it. After all, her father had this information for a while, so maybe they’re ahead of this team.
“Was there anything on Amara’s sister?” Sienna asks.
“No, nothing that we can see right away,” Alessio replies. “But Lazaro found another diary and two certificates at Giovanni’s hideout, so they may give us a direction.”
“There’s a diary from my mother too?” I ask, my heart pounding.
Alessio nods, giving a knowing smile. “Perhaps it will finally answer some questions of how you were all smuggled out.”
Hope burns. I want that, desperately.
“Wait, what’s this?” Gia suddenly asks, pointing at the diary and the section where the certificates were. “Why does this say ‘Gia’s twin’? I don’t have a twin.”
Everyone freezes.
“What?” Sienna asks, moving around Nico to stand with Gia.
Gia’s hands shake as she picks up the diary, reading aloud, her voice thick with emotion.
“I knew this pregnancy was wrong. It was wrong from the first moment. I prayed for two sons. I prayed that I didn’t have to send away another daughter, but God did not answer my prayers. No, he punished me instead. He made my suffering a million times worse than any other before. Even sending away my beautiful girls, it was not enough. Perhaps this is my punishment for not keeping them with me. For daring to send them away. He gave me the final sign. The one that will surely have my husband killing me before long. Perhaps that is better. I will not be able to protect my daughter from her father now. Nor do I know if I want to. This is her fault. She came breech, and she prevented the doctors from saving her brother in time. He came out black and blue, the cord wrapped around his neck so tightly that there was no hope of saving him. He was dead before his birth. Leonardo was so angry, I thought he would kill her then. The doctor stopped him, barely, but perhaps it would have been kinder for him to stay out of it. She will never be loved. She will never be anything more than the reason that another son was taken from him. I can’t get her out, and that’s her own punishment to bear. She will not be as lucky as her sisters or her brother.”
“She h-h-hated m-m-me,” Gia sobs, staring at the diary. “I k-killed my b-b-brother.”
My heart breaks, and Sienna looks both horrified and heartbroken. She gently extracts the diary from Gia’s hand, trying to calm her down. “No, Gia. No. She didn’t hate you. She was in pain. She was tired and grieving. She didn’t mean it.”
“Yes, she did!” she screams, pain and anger so sharp that Sienna takes a step back from her in surprise. “Yes, she fucking did,” she screams again. “They all hated me. She never held me. She never loved me or treated me with anything other than disdain. She never read to me, she never tucked me in, and she never spent any more time than necessary in my presence. I knew she hated me. I thought I just wasn’t good enough. That I wasn’t trying hard enough. But that’s not it. It’s not. She hated me because I was born first, because I didn’t come easily like the others. She said it herself. My father should have killed me. I should have been the one who died, not her son.” Brutal sobs wrack her body as she cries in anguish, “ It should have been me. ”
Sienna moves like she wants to hug her, but Nico steps in, scooping her up in his arms. He leaves the office, not so much as glancing at any of us. His face is so hard, so cold, but his eyes are so full of pain. He’s gutted, just like his wife, but he has to be the strong one. Gia’s sobs echo through the house.
Is this what we have to look forward to? Vicious diatribes from long-dead mothers, and the death of our dreams that they once loved us?? Has everything been a lie?
Sienna starts to cry silently, and Alessio rushes to scoop her into his arms. He carries her out of the room, the diary falling to the floor out of her hands. I reach down to pick it up, holding it with shaking hands.
“Don’t, Rori,” Alonzo suddenly says, his tone far gentler than I’ve ever heard from him. He’s holding Rori back against him. She struggles, her expression a mixture of rage and desperation. “I know you are her friend, but she needs her man right now,” he tells her gently.
“I’m her best friend, her sister,” Rori snarls. “She needs me too.”
“She does, but not yet,” he admonishes. “Just give them a little bit of time and then you can be with her.”
Rori slumps, her face contorted in despair. Then she does something completely unexpected. She turns, wraps her arms around him, and holds him tight. Alonzo looks surprised, but he hugs her to his chest, then lifts her and carries her over to the corner of the room, murmuring quietly.
I look at the others in the room. Sofia appears troubled, and I see her holding Dante’s hand tightly, while the other men look a mixture of angry, shocked, and resolute. The weight of the diary in my hand is almost too much to bear. I want to open it, to read more, to find the parts that prove this faceless woman isn’t as terrible as it’s proving her to be, but I don’t. It’s not my story to find. She was my aunt, not my mother, and I have no right to it.
I turn to Pietro and hold out the diary to him with shaking hands. He takes it and sets it back on the desk without looking at it. “Aurelio, we need to find the other girl. Quickly.”
“I’ll work as long as I have to find her. Both her, and your sister.” His voice is determined, but he can’t keep the worry from his eyes.
We’re all thinking the same thing. What else will we unearth in these diaries, and how many other lives are they going to destroy?