Chapter Eleven
IT WAS THE moment Rocco had dreaded, but there was relief, too. He had loathed every minute of keeping Silvio’s identity from her. When she had called to tell him she was coming here to see what was in the safe, he had called Silvio to warn him.
“If there’s something in there about me, you have to stop her,” Silvio had insisted.
“Whatever is in there belongs to her,” Rocco had replied. “I can’t snatch it out of her hands.”
That’s exactly what he wanted to do, though. He wanted to rewind fifteen minutes, to when Mira had been joking with the locksmith, before she had released troubles and woes into their world.
At least he’d had the sense to dismiss the work crew so the room was silent but for the rustle of Mira’s clothes and the crunch of her shoe on floor grit as she stood.
“You knew?” Her voice shook. Her face, so filled with discovery and enchantment a moment ago, was crumpling into shadows of disbelief. Denial. Say it isn’t so.
He set aside the box, hands flexing with the need to draw her into his arms. He could see her beginning to tremble. He could feel their connection fracturing and he wanted to keep her from leaping to conclusions even though they were the correct conclusions.
He wanted to hold on to her because he could see her pulling away from him, retreating to the farthest corner of the room, staring at him as though she didn’t recognize him.
“How long have you known?” she asked in that voice that threatened to shatter.
“Years.” There was no other way to do this except bluntly.
“When Otto began targeting GPS, Silvio told me it was likely because Otto had learned Silvio was your father.” Rocco looked to the shallow well that was the safe, hidden all these years by ugly, unnecessary flooring.
“My guess is that Otto came here after your mother died, read that note and sealed up the truth.”
“Otto knows Silvio is my father.” The words were punched out of her. “Why didn’t he tell me?” She was aghast. Bewildered.
“Silvio told me there was a nondefamation clause in their marriage contract. I don’t think Otto could tell you. Not without a financial penalty of some kind.”
“He called her a whore. To my face.” She pointed at her flushed cheeks. At eyes growing bright with seething anger. “Wait.” She stood straighter, eyes widening it shock. “You knew all of this when we met in London?”
He couldn’t bear the look on her face. He closed his eyes against it.
“Oh, my God.”
“Mira, listen. Silvio has always regretted that he couldn’t have a relationship with you—”
“He never even tried,” she cried.
“Because your mother wanted to hide this as much as he did.”
She gasped and recoiled as though he’d struck her.
“Not because she was ashamed of you.” His throat felt as though a clawed hand took a grip on his windpipe. He had known this would be bad, but nothing could have prepared him for how bad this was. He held out a hand, urging her to bear with him.
“When we met in London, I only meant to talk with you. For him.”
“Oh? He must have loved hearing how that went!”
“I didn’t tell him.”
“Shocking!” She took a few steps. Her hand covered her trembling lips. “Why?” she asked, turning to face him with tears in her eyes. “I don’t understand why you would do this to me. You asked me to live with you. You said you wanted a future with me.”
“I do. Amato. I’ve tried to let you know how much Silvio means to me, so you would understand when this came out, and see why I couldn’t betray him by telling you.”
“So you betrayed me instead.” She set a hand on her chest and blinked eyes that had turned desolate. Her mouth trembled with injury. “That tells me how much you really care about me, doesn’t it? What is it about me that asks people to lie about the most important things?”
“Mira.” He took a step toward her.
“Don’t you dare touch me.” She pressed up against the wall.
“Don’t you dare. What has all this been, anyway?
” she asked with angry confusion. “I have been helping you take out your primary competition while you’ve been trying to keep me from finding out who my father is.
That is not a fair and equal relationship. ” She spat the word with contempt.
“Mira.” He rubbed his eyes. “I am with you because I want to be. Silvio is angry we’re together. His family expects to meet my fiancée, but…”
“He doesn’t want to meet me,” she said, eyes bulging with pain.
“Mirabella. Don’t do this to yourself. Come.” He held out his arms. “Let me explain.”
“Are you seriously blaming me for being upset that every person in my life who ought to care about me has lied to me? You, most of all? I’ve said it before and this time I really mean it. Go to hell, Rocco.”
She walked out.
He snatched up the box of valuables, fearful she’d slip on the ladder since she was upset and it was the only access point right now.
She was already at the top, and called out in Italian, “Excuse me. Can you take me to the train station?”
Rocco hurried up the ladder and saw she was speaking to one of his workers, a middle-aged tradesman gathering tools from the back of his truck.
“I’ll take you to Naples,” Rocco said.
“I will crawl on my hands and knees all the way to Berlin before I go anywhere with you ever again,” Mira said in a voice that was guttural with betrayal. “No?” she demanded of the startled workman. “Fine.” She started walking toward the road.
Rocco nodded curtly.
The man called out that yes, he could take her to Vietri sul Mare.
Rocco followed her to the truck and held the door open.
The seat was covered in dust, the interior reeking of grease and solvents and the smell from his youth, dropping him straight back to those years of striving to earn enough of a wage that he could go back to his aunt.
Striving to be enough for the love he wanted.
“Do you want this?” he asked of the box he still held.
She dropped the paperwork into it along with her engagement ring, then turned her back on him. Her seat belt clicked.
“Vai, per favore,” she said to the workman.
She didn’t look at Rocco again.
Mira slipped into the same fog that had carried her from Otto’s office six weeks ago. Seven? Time flies when you’re in a state of self-delusion. She’d thought she was falling in love with someone who might someday love her back, but it was all a lie.
She didn’t bother collecting her things from Naples or going to Rome for anything from Rocco’s apartment. They were all things that Rocco had bought her and she wanted nothing from him. Nothing.
Like a wounded animal going to ground, she made her way back to Berlin.
There, the silence of her apartment closed around her like a glacier, encasing her in ice.
She was back to feeling more alone in the world than any person ought to be, but there was familiarity in this hollow, absent insignificance. She knew how to exist in it.
The last time she’d felt like this, however, she’d had a job to go to. And Axel. Their relationship had been superficial, but being forced to go out with him had kept her putting one foot in front of the other.
Without that much to oblige her, she barely moved from the bed to the couch and back.
She showered and put on clean pajamas every night, but she wore them every day, all day.
She ordered food, but she didn’t eat much.
When the woman arrived to dust and water the plants, she let her take out the garbage and run the laundry and remake her bed, but that was the most contact she had with the outside world.
Rocco texted until she blocked him. Messages also came from Patrizia about the villa along with a handful of invitations from the new acquaintances she’d met through Rocco. She hit block until her phone quit making noise.
The quiet should have been a relief, but nothing helped. She was one raw nerve. An abscessed tooth. Pure pain. Anything that touched her only amplified her agony.
Another week went by. She knew because she had clean pajamas again and the fridge was empty of take-away containers.
Otherwise, nothing had changed. She was still bundled on the sofa watching something inane.
It could have been a mystery or a comedy.
She had no idea. It filled her vision with flickering images and hitting “still watching” was all she was able to accomplish in this state.
She didn’t know what day it was or even the time. When her phone buzzed, she picked it up to block it, surprised there was anyone left to block.
It was Winola, Otto’s housekeeper.
Her thumb hovered over the decline button. She only had Winola in her phone because the woman had texted once when Mira had forgotten her coat at Otto’s mansion.
Winola had always been nice to her. Or rather, she had never been cruel. Not like everyone else.
She answered, “Braun,” and immediately had to clear her throat. She hadn’t spoken in days and it struck her that she was still using Otto’s surname when she had never had any claim to it.
“I’m so sorry, Frau Braun,” Winola said in a tone of distress. “Your father has passed away.”
“What?” It took a moment to connect the dots, then she said, “Otto?”
“I found him when I arrived. He seems to have collapsed as he was preparing for bed last night. Perhaps his heart? The police are on their way with the coroner. They asked me to inform his next of kin and ask you to come. I’m so sorry.”
He’s not my father was her first thought.
She could have been his daughter, though. He had had ample time to nurture a relationship with her that would have had her crying over his death. Instead, she was hollow and the only loss she felt was for what could have been.
She looked to the pajamas she wore, wanting to stay in them. She had had enough of Otto putting her through the wringer. She had cut him from her life. Deservedly so. Now this?
“I understand this is difficult,” Winola said kindly. “Perhaps I could assist you? I’m sure there are people who will need to be informed. Once you’re here, I can make some calls for you, if you like.”
As the other woman’s generosity penetrated, Mira knew she couldn’t leave poor Winola to handle this. What a horrible thing for her to confront when she had only thought she was coming to dust and wash up the dishes.
“I’ll be there as soon as I can,” Mira said.
For the first time since her return to Berlin, her brain began to sluggishly function. She thought to call Axel. He was equally shocked, but he promised to inform Otto’s lawyer, Umberto.
Mira moved into her bedroom to shower and dress, pity party over.
Rocco was at work when he got the news.
He was always at work these days. He hated going home.
The penthouse was too quiet. Too clean. Mira’s books and hair clips were no longer littered around the living room.
The blanket she used on the terrace in the evenings hadn’t moved from the arm of the chair.
Her toothbrush was no longer next to his in the holder.
He had thought about sending her belongings to her, but the way she had left told him she would hate him even more if he did.
Instead, Florenza had moved everything into the guest room.
The box of trinkets from the villa was also there and he was as aware of them as he would be if she slept there.
He felt her absence like a presence. Like a phantom limb.
“She left me because I kept your secret,” he had told Silvio after she drove away from the villa. “She is hurt beyond measure. You made me an accomplice to that and I’ll never forgive you for it.” He had ended the call before Silvio could even try to defend himself.
They’d never had such a lengthy or impassable disagreement between them. It bothered Rocco, feeling very final, but whatever animosity Silvio might feel over all of this, Rocco felt more.
He would forever blame Silvio for costing him Mira.
And yet, she wouldn’t exist if not for Silvio and his one-time affair. It was a paradox.
So he came to work to distract himself, but lacked the compulsive drive he used to possess.
He didn’t see any point. When he had first begged for a job, he’d been trying to get back to his aunt.
After she passed, he’d been trying to survive, then Silvio had lifted him up.
Rocco had wanted to do well for his friend, out of appreciation for his belief in him.
Now, work was simply the thing he did to fill his day. Even his desire to get back at Otto by poaching all his clients had lost its appeal. He wanted to protect Mira from the man, so he continued his assaults, but there was no satisfaction in it.
Short of supervising the work at Mira’s villa, he had little interest in even reading a text.
Mira had stopped answering Patrizia’s calls and texts so he’d taken over with that project, deluding himself into believing Mira would be happy with the result, when, far more likely, she would sell the villa to a stranger purely to spite him.
How could he win her back? Two weeks without her had him feeling like a castaway, hungry and thirsty, drowning in waves of self-recrimination.
His problem-solving brain had arrived at a mountain of granite that couldn’t be removed or tunneled through or blasted out of his way. He was suffocating. Aching with loss.
This was worse than when he’d been taken from his aunt. At least his aunt had wanted to see him. Mira had cut him out of her life with deliberation and finality.
When his phone began blowing up with messages telling him that Otto Braun was dead, it was the strangest punch. His thoughts leaped to Mira, of course, not that they ever left her. He had promised to protect her from Otto and now she would never again need him to do that.
What did this mean for his attacks on Vorstoben, though?
After Axel had married Otto’s biological daughter, he had begun pulling his own supports.
Vorstoben was at a delicate stage. This was the best time for Rocco to press his advantage, but he had to wonder what would be the point?
Who would take over now that Otto was gone?
Did he even care? His only concern was how all of this affected Mira. Would the weight of making arrangements for Otto’s service land on her? Was she supposed to celebrate the life of a man who wasn’t her father and pretend he hadn’t treated her abominably?
He wanted to reach out, but knew she had blocked him. He was the last person she wanted to see, but he decided to attend the service. He needed to see her. To tell her…
He wanted to tell her he loved her. Because he did. He loved her in ways he hadn’t known it was possible to love someone. The emotion was an arrow lodged in his chest, throbbing and seeping with agony.
After what he’d done, however, he didn’t expect her to believe him.