Chapter 37
Damien
"I'm here to see Marco Agosti," I tell the guard at the gate. He speaks briefly with someone through his earpiece before waving our car through toward the Victorian mansion.
Vasili signals that he'll wait in the car because he knows this is a conversation I need to have privately.
He's the one who verified all the information we received and assured me that, however unreal it might seem, the facts don't lie.
Another guard escorts me to the office. When he knocks, Marco's voice invites us in.
I must have something written across my face that tells him we need to talk, because he waves the guard away and rises from his chair, hands in his pockets.
"Good to see you on your feet, Kaminski," he says, though I catch an edge of irritation in his voice.
"Yeah, next time I'll tell them to try shooting the other side; my liver's getting tired of being bothered." I attempt a smile, but his expression remains stone-cold.
I take the opportunity to study him from head to toe, trying to piece together this puzzle in my mind.
"I came to talk about Roxanne," I finally say.
"About Roxy." I don’t miss how his attention is now fully mine.
I should have realized that night I first met her that something was off, but the image of her mother in those overalls and Roxanne herself—who seemed to have nothing to do with this world—threw me off track.
Because that night, we were at Valentino Agosti's house. Marco Agosti's brother. I never bothered analyzing who the men were that my mother gathered information from, but I know for certain that night my mother sat in Valentino's lap until he took her upstairs to a bedroom.
When we left, Marzena had that satisfied look she always wore when her schemes paid off.
But I couldn't find the thread connecting Roxanne's mother to the Italian mafia until Vasili started asking questions in Sicily. Specifically in Naples, where Marco's from.
"How long have you known you're Roxanne's father?" I ask, watching shock register on his face.
Not shock at just finding out, surprise that I know this detail.
Within seconds he masks his features, but it's too late. I saw what I needed to see.
"Many years," he answers. "How the hell do you know?"
"Years ago, at one of your brother's parties, my mother dragged me along. There was a woman there with Roxanne."
His eyes narrow, something like disbelief creeping into his gaze.
"What?"
"You didn't know Roxanne's mother was at that party?"
"No, hell, I never even thought..."
He collapses into one of the armchairs, hands on his knees.
"I met Elena in Italy when I was seventeen. My family already had my wedding planned to my son's mother, but..."
"You fell in love," I finish for him.
"I couldn't help but fall in love. That woman made the Earth orbit around her. We spent a few months together, months where I knew we were just delaying the inevitable because when I turned eighteen, they set an official wedding date. The day I said 'I do,' she vanished from my life."
Without meaning to, my blood starts to boil. Because I know how arranged marriages work, especially with Italians. It's not something you choose, not something you negotiate, but still, he let her go.
If that woman meant so much to him, how the hell did he let her walk away? Why didn't he take on the entire Italian mafia for her?
"A few years later, she contacted me out of the blue.
She wanted to meet, so I agreed. By then she'd gotten married, and that's when she told me about Roxy.
That she was mine. But I was still part of a world Elena didn't want our daughter mixed up in, so I gave her a location and a date.
If she decided to be with me, all she had to do was be there. "
And I already know Elena never made it to that meeting. Because The Bloody Dahlia got to her first. And with her death, my little sun stopped shining.
I see the haunted look in his eyes, and I'm glad it's there.
He was a coward, chose the easy path instead of fighting.
I don't have many certainties in this life, but I know I couldn't let Roxanne run from me.
I want to believe the only act of kindness I've done was not searching for her all these years.
But from the moment the Universe put her back in my path, I knew that no matter how much she struggled, no matter how much she resisted, I'd convince her to be mine.
"So you know what happened to Roxanne's mother?" I ask.
He just nods slightly.
"I tried to find the bastard. I tried bribing people in the police, but once his killings stopped, the investigation went cold. Witnesses couldn't remember exactly what they'd seen and what they hadn't, and Roxy, being so young, couldn't recall anything concrete."
His words come out slow, lifeless, and again, his resignation infuriates me.
"How the fuck are you so calm?" I raise my voice, and irritation floods his expression as he stands.
"Maybe I didn't fight for Elena the way I should have, but I was a kid, Damien. Need me to remind you what it's like to have no power? Remind you what it's like when you have to keep your head down and count the days until you can tip the balance of power in your favor?"
Everyone knows about the conflict I have with my own mother.
Many have heard the rumors about me and Berna—one of the reasons we secured so many votes initially.
And what pisses me off is that I understand.
I understand that you can't always just grab a gun and put a bullet between the guilty party's eyes.
I understand that sometimes you have to let that rage eat you from the inside until you can spit it back at those who wronged you.
But that doesn't mean it doesn't bother me.
"He's after Roxanne now. That son of a bitch didn't die, and now he's got her in his sights," I bite out.
His face drains of color and he swallows hard.
"That's why she married you," he says, and my jaw tightens. "You manipulated her with the idea of protection, didn't you? Because I know for sure that when I had a detective find information about her right after my son's wedding, you weren't in the picture."
His hand moves to the gun at his back as he asks clearly and precisely, "Did you force her to marry you for protection?"
"While I appreciate this paternal display, I have two points to make.
First, my wife will put a bullet in you herself if I come home shot, and second, don't pretend you know your own daughter.
Trust me when I say if she didn't want to be my wife, all the protection and manipulation in the world wouldn't have convinced her. "
And it's true. Even if she lies to herself that she only accepted to have my resources at her disposal, and even if I told her about the whole Council situation, I still would have put all my soldiers and men in her hands. Because she's mine even if she doesn't remember.
Something in what I said calms him and he lowers the gun.
"The reason I'm telling you all this is precisely because of the past you shared with Roxanne's mother.
This is where I haven't been able to find out much.
I know she was adopted at two years old by a family in Naples.
I know she wanted to study law, and at eighteen she bought herself a ticket to the United States, and that's about it. "
I watch him run his hand through his hair and exhale.
"I know she had a brother and that she didn't get along with her family at all because she always had a more rebellious approach to things. I know she loved lemon ricotta cookies." His voice breaks. "And I don't understand why no one mentioned she was at Valentino's house."
Neither do I, but something tells me my dear mother was involved in omitting those details.
I don't know if Elena talked to anyone else that night, don't know if anyone remembers her.
"What do you know about her husband?" I ask because regardless of whether he has an alibi, certain details from the investigation might have been poorly documented.
Marco grimaces, but he answers.
"Not much. He wanted to be a surgeon, but he failed the Yale admission exam, so his parents forced him to take over the family business. And less than ten months after Elena died, he married his former secretary. But I don't think he's who we're looking for."
Neither do I, but I wanted to see if his instinct was on the same wavelength as mine.
"And her brother?"
"Adoptive sibling. I just know Elena loved him. I was actually surprised he didn't fight harder for custody of Roxy, but I think he wanted to leave her with the image of the father she grew up with."
I nod slightly, though I want to tell him he was a miserable father to her. I remember her eyes when she told me how many times she ate alone, how many times she lay sick without anyone checking on her, and my hand starts to shake.
Because I understand what world he would have brought her into if he'd claimed her as his daughter.
Amid guns, drugs, violence, and blood. But she would have had affection.
She could've lit up the sky. Instead, he left her stuck with a family that just walked all over her.
And when the memory of her tears fills my mind, everything around me turns red.
I don't know at what point I lunge at him, don't know when I start connecting my fist with his jaw, but somehow, through all the smoke in my mind, I know I scream, "MAYBE YOU WEREN'T THE ONE WHO KILLED ELENA, BUT YOU'RE RESPONSIBLE FOR HOW ROXANNE FADED AFTER HER DEATH, BECAUSE YOU WERE A COWARD!"
Arms pull me off Marco, and it takes me a few seconds to collect myself, to make all that damn smoke dissipate.
Two of his soldiers hold my arms while their boss gets up from the floor and wipes the blood from his nose and mouth.
I hope I shifted his jaw a little to the right.
"Leave us," he tells them, and though I feel the tension in their bodies, they inevitably obey their boss and leave.
"You know how my wife died?" he asks, walking to the liquor cabinet.
I already know the answer, but I choose to stay silent, so after a few moments he answers for me.
"A group of lowlifes from Bologna caught her, raped her, killed her bodyguards, then sent me footage of them shooting her between the eyes.
All over some bags of cocaine we'd confiscated in our territory.
You think I didn't want to go get her so many times?
SHE HAS HER EYES, DAMIEN! And I would have given anything to see those eyes daily, but after that incident I realized my world is the last place I'd willingly drag her into. "
What he doesn't understand is that she was born into this world. With a serial killer on her trail, the safest place was exactly in this world. Surrounded by soldiers, with resources at her disposal to hunt down the bastard who dared to dream of her.
"Are you going to tell her?" he asks.
"No. I don't want to hurt her. Her memories from back then are all fuzzy, and if I push too hard, I could really mess her up."
At least that's what the doctor I spoke with told me. Because from the moment I saw her, I knew she had no idea who I was. Yes, she was a child and there's a chance her mind erased me just because so much time has passed. But I feel like that's not it.
He nods slightly, resigned. And for the first time since I entered this office, I feel a trace of pity for what he's lost, for not knowing her.
For not knowing how her eyes light up when she's excited or how her forehead creases when she doesn't understand something.
The way her lips push forward when she wants to be spoiled.
Without another word, I close the door behind me. My wife is waiting for me at dinner, and I don't want to disappoint her.