Chapter 29
AIDA
“You find her yet?” Agnelo’s words climb up to greet me as soon as the basement door opens and my feet move down the steps. “C-c-come on now, don’t keep me in suspense,” he continues.
Even as he sounds weak, he still has the strength to mock us. I’ve never had this visceral desire to end someone’s life before, but his, I’ll do it gladly.
Matteo tucks my small hand in his bigger one as we descend together to face the monster children should only know from stories, but he made all our nightmares come true.
“Did you piss yourself, yet?” Matteo asks as we make it down the final step. And when our eyes zip to his pants, we realize he did.
“Need a diaper?” I snicker. Seeing him covered in wounds brings me a satisfaction I can’t describe.
He laughs with a cough. “Th-there sh-she is. I’ve missed you. Glad to see you in…fuck”—he winces as he shifts on the mattress—“one piece.”
Without hesitation, I rush to him. “I’ll kill you right now if you don’t tell me where Robby is.”
“Oh.” He feigns a frown. “Was the boy not there? My memory is getting rusty.” He coughs, spitting up blood.
My breaths rush past me in a panic, my pulse thrashing. “Where is he?” I shout, turning back to Matteo. “Give me your gun.” I stretch out a hand, and he takes out the one in his waistband and gives it to me.
“Now.” I turn to Agnelo. “Should I continue to hurt you? Seems like Matteo did a fine job so far.”
His eyelids flicker, like he’s trying to stay awake, but he keeps going. “Not afraid of…” He pauses, trying to control his pain. “A bunch of pathetic kids,” he spits out, biting down on his teeth. “I’ve been through worse.”
A laugh weaves out of me, and before he can utter another word, I slam the gun into his hand.
And I don’t stop. I scream with all the pent-up anger laid buried, hitting him again and again—his head, his neck, his arms. I pound him with furious blows, my body buzzing and tingling with the desire to watch the life slip out of his lungs.
I see Ms. Greco, remembering her death, Matteo shot, falling on this very mattress, my attacks, the constant fear in Robby’s eyes—it all flashes before me, like a movie.
Arms wrap around me from behind, and Matteo’s voice lulls me, keeping the ghosts of my scars from continuing to own me.
“It’s okay, my love. Shh. I’ve got you.” With a cry, I twist into his arms and wrap mine around his neck, sobbing into his chest as he holds me. “I promise, you can do whatever you want to him, but after we find Robby.”
“Okay,” I sniffle as I pitch back. His thumbs swipe under both my eyes. “Thank you for not giving up on me. I blamed you for her death and I’m so sorry for that. Please, forgive me.”
“You never needed my forgiveness for a single damn thing, but if you need me to say it, then yeah, I forgive you.”
Agnelo coughs and moans behind us, and our attention is back to him. “You ready to talk yet?” I ask. “Or should I continue?”
“His mo-mother.” He spits up blood. “The mother and the Cavaleris, they…” he whimpers, “…got him.”
Matteo stiffens beside me, his expression tight.
“So, his mother, she wasn’t in jail, huh?” I shake my head, disgust coming over my face. “You took him too, didn’t you?”
“He’s my fucking kid.” His eyes harden even as he slowly dies. “My kin. Not like you.” His upper lip curls, blood running in between his teeth.
“The best thing to ever happen to me was to find out we’re not related. And don’t worry, Robby will never know who you truly are.”
When he doesn’t say anything, just stares at me with boldness, I raise the gun in my hand, readying to bash it into his skull.
“Who was my father?” I ask. “What was my mother’s name?”
“Wa-wallet,” he says, lifting his unchained hand to cover his face. “Her wallet’s in the office, bottom drawer. D-don’t know who your father is but got her name on her license.”
Not wasting a second, we rush up the stairs, a chill skittering up my arms.
“Robby’s mom,” Matteo says as we make it to the office. “She’s with my brothers.”
“Your brothers?” Confusion settles over me as I pull open the drawer.
“Cavaleri. That’s me. Matteo Cavaleri.”
My mouth falls open. He’s never told me his full name, even when I had asked.
“I saw them,” he admits, and I witness the hurt in his eyes. “When I was out looking for you.”
“What? Oh my God!” I rummage through the drawer, my attention jumping between him and my mission to find my mother’s wallet.
“Do you know where they live? Why they left you? Agnelo could’ve been lying about it all.
I know you wanted to believe he wasn’t, that you had no one, but what if they never stopped looking for you? What if there’s more to the story?”
Matteo appears as though he’s considering what I’m saying, while I throw all the papers in the cabinet onto the floor. Finally, I see it—a rectangular brown wallet, the leather still soft beneath my fingertips.
My heart races as I stare down at it, Matteo’s footfalls inching closer, until he appears beside me.
“Open it,” he murmurs.
But I can’t.
“I’m afraid.” I swallow over the words, the trepidation churning in my stomach.
“For so long, I had wondered about her. And now, I don’t know if I’m ready to know her, because she’ll never be my mother, Matteo.
” Tears fill my eyes, so heavy they crash over me like a tidal wave.
“She’ll never get to love me. She’ll…” I burst into a sob. “She’ll never know me.”
Instantly, he cups my face, kissing the very tip of my nose.
“But you can know her. In some way, you’ll have her like you never did before.
And believe me, I know how it is losing those you love.
But she wanted you. She protected you.” He lifts my chin in between two fingers. “Open it, Aida. Tell me her name.”
Nerves roll down my body, and with a shaky hand, I pop the button, lifting the flap…and there she is.
Her smile is wide, her hair blonde and wavy. She’s exactly how I remember her in my dreams, as though I plucked her out and placed her within them.
“She’s so beautiful,” I whisper.
“She is. Like you.” His arm drapes around my shoulder and he tucks me into his side, kissing the top of my head as we both gaze at her.
“Cecilia Robinson,” I say. “Does that mean I’m Aida Robinson? Is that even my name or did he change it?”
“Let’s go ask him,” he tells me. “Then we’ll go and find my brothers to make sure Robby is really safe.”
“I hope he is. I hope that one of us was able to get their family back.” A sharp pang hits my chest. “Will you talk to them?” I look up at him, pulling away a fraction.
“I don’t know.” His gaze jumps to the floor. “Too much time has passed. I doubt they really care.”
“I bet you anything they still love you.” I trail my knuckles down his cheek, and his eyes return to mine. “Wishing every day that you were still alive. You have a chance, Matteo. Something I’ll never get with my mother.”
I grasp his hand, squeezing. “We’ll find Robby and then you’ll talk to them. For me.” But it’s for him. He needs this. His pain is still so fresh, even after all these years. He needs the truth about his life as much as I do.
He doesn’t say anything as I close the drawer, taking the wallet with me. But before we go back down, my attention swivels toward the baseball bat Agnelo has always kept here, right in the corner of the room. I’m sure he’s used it plenty of times, and not in the way it was intended.
“One second,” I say, going to grab it.
“What are you going to do with that?”
“I’m gonna kill him with it.”
He pauses, clasping the back of my neck in his palm, his eyes boring deeply. “I won’t stand in your way.”
We start for the basement, ready to end this once and for all. But I suddenly remember we can’t leave this horror of a place until we get everything I’ve kept hidden. “The pictures you made me, your photo of your family, we have to get them.”
“Shit, yeah.”
We hurry up the stairs, and once we’re in my room, he lifts the mattress as I snatch up all the pieces of us we held on to—the sketches of me he drew, my diary, the picture of his once happy family. It’s ours now. Agnelo can’t take it away.
He takes the photo from my hand and stares at it with deep concentration.
“They love you,” I reassure, stroking his back, knowing it has to be true. “They love you so much. Their baby brother.”
His shoulders rise higher with each one of his inhales. “Maybe.” He sighs, and the way he says that, it cuts into my heart. The vulnerability within him is so beautiful, I ache to hold him and never let him go.
He’s strong, yet tender. Still broken, yet not bruised enough to give up. And that’s what he’s been doing from the moment we met—fighting. But maybe the fight can finally be over. Maybe we can win.
He slips the photo into his pocket, and together, we return to the basement.
Agnelo doesn’t say a word this time when he hears us, his coughing getting worse.
“Was my name Aida?” I stride up to him. “Or is that another lie?”
“It’s wha—sh-she called you,” he flusters, finding it difficult to speak.
“Kill m-me.” With his eyes streaked red, he lifts a defeated look at Matteo, whose footsteps lightly pad the floor before he takes the space behind me.
“I’m not gonna kill you. She is.”
With a shout, I lift the bat in the air. “This is for my mother!” It swings across his neck with so much force, my body shakes.
He groans, still very much alive, and I’m glad for it.