26. — birds fly. #3
“Because she was—well, from the time you were about two and half, I think.”
Frankie couldn’t remember that far back. Her earliest memories of Sissy started around four, maybe. “Really?”
“Yes.”
“So, where did Daddy find her?”
“He didn’t find her; she was given to him.”
Frankie’s finger froze in the lock of hair. “Given?”
“She belonged to a woman who provided girls to work—cleaning, nannying, sex, whatever someone needed. Whatever a man needed,” Carina clarified, glancing over at Frankie. “She came into Giorgio’s hands just shortly after Nico was born, but she wasn’t to his tastes.”
Frankie thought about all the young, female staff who had done the heavy lifting at the Russo holiday party. “When you say...belong...you don’t mean...”
“If you can’t say it, then that’s exactly what I mean.”
“But—”
“Do you know why your father has PTSD?”
Frankie went with the obvious. “I mean, his parents, my mother’s parents, his brothers...they all died within a couple of years of one another. Right?”
“That’s one reason, but Giorgio killed them,” Carina corrected, “to punish your father. For some. Others, that was just part of the plan. Anyway, when Sissy wouldn’t behave to Giorgio’s preferences, and he saw your father going through a particularly difficult time after your mother’s accident, well... he thought Sissy would fill the void.”
Flies could have found a home in Frankie’s mouth. “What?”
“I think Sal told me once the words Giorgio used were...something about taking care of the brat and warming his bed.”
“And he probably did need someone to help with me,” Frankie said quietly.
“Desperately.”
Frankie didn’t ask more questions about Sissy if only because Carina made another face, and her palm pressed hard along the side of her swollen stomach.
“I think we should call a doctor, or something,” Frankie stated firmly.
Carina nodded. “Yeah, they’re about seven minutes apart right now.”
“I knew it.”
Her stepmother only smiled weakly.
“It’s too early, though,” Frankie pointed out.
Carina just shook her head. “Not for twins, it isn’t.
Thirty-five weeks and beyond is standard for a pregnancy with multiples, not to mention, my last birth came early because of a rupture in my placenta that required surgery to repair a tear in my uterus.
I’m already behind the ball with this one. ”
It took Frankie way too long to understand what she just heard.
“Twins? What the hell? Does Daddy know?”
Why didn’t he tell her?
Carina eyed her again, but now, her jaw trembled a bit like that pain she’d been feeling had started to intensify. “Here’s that thing I needed to tell you, okay?”
“Okay,” she whispered back.
“Your father doesn’t know. They suspected it might be a twin pregnancy when I had my first appointment.
My hormone levels were abnormally high for the stage in pregnancy I was at.
Then, when I when I went in to have the genetic testing done and they were able to hear the heartbeat, not just see it, there sounded like a second one was distorting the beats per minute.
Except, they couldn’t see a second baby on the ultrasound. ”
“Wait, so—”
“You’ve got to let me finish. This is important.” Carina shifted on the chair to put her legs to the floor of the balcony instead of up on the coffee table. “The second baby is a cryptic pregnancy. It’s at my back, behind the boy. They essentially confirmed it after the genetic testing came back.
“They warned me from the beginning that it didn’t look like the second, unseen twin would be viable.
They expected I would lose it before the twelve-week mark, but I didn’t.
Nonetheless, she continued to be smaller and never visible with ultrasounds.
Although, I never had big babies. Nico just hit five pounds, and Carmen barely topped three. But that’s not important here.”
“Well, what is?”
“It’s possible the girl will be born dead, Frankie.
I couldn’t tell your father. He couldn’t do it again.
He still can’t even talk about his son. How would he do it again?
He can’t even make himself say the words.
So, I did what I had to, made sure my medical team knew how serious this could be for my husband to have yet another child born dead, and so they planned accordingly with me to keep mention of the second baby out of any discussions during appointments that your father attended.
We planned a c-section, needed because of the previous complication anyway, and Salvatore just thought because of the nature of the issue, he couldn’t be in the OR when the baby was born. ”
Frankie blinked several times. “What baby?”
“Hmm?”
“You said he couldn’t do it again. He couldn’t have a baby born dead again. What baby?”
A tear trickled down Carina’s cheek. She didn’t wipe it away. “They were barely twenty-four, your mother and him. They didn’t have any money. Their families cut them off entirely after they married in pretty much every way.”
“What baby, Carina?”
“A little boy. Your mother was distraught, she couldn’t even look at him, I guess.
Your father was left trying to figure out the medical bills and the paperwork.
He couldn’t even name him. The years after were just...
bad. It took over ten years for you to come along for them.
If he could tell you, he would say that’s when the PTSD started, before the killings. The rest just made it all worse.”
“And so, what, you didn’t tell him you were having twins because—”
“Sometimes we hold things for the people we love because we know they can’t,” Carina interjected softly, as if she were begging Frankie to understand. “He couldn’t hold this; he barely did it the first time, and even now...it kills him. I have to hold it for him.”
“And me, right?” Frankie returned. “You want me to hold it, too.”
Carina trembled in the chair, her tears coming freely now. “Because I need somebody, too. He’s supposed to be there, okay? Just outside the doors to hold his son, and maybe his daughter, but it’s not going to work out that way. I can’t hold this alone. So yeah, I need you to hold it with me.”
Larkin came back to stand in the sliding doorway, glancing between the two women and the scene playing out between them. He said nothing.
“Who else knows?” Frankie asked carefully. “About it all?”
“Just you, Larkin, and me.”
“I’ve called an ambulance,” Larkin murmured.
Carina let out a hard breath. “I knew you were counting the minutes between them, asshole.”
“Had a few my own, Carina. Well, the ex did. I managed to be around for a couple of them.”
She stood from the chair slowly. “Don’t call Salvatore yet, Larkin. Not until the family meeting has ended, okay? He needs to see it through today. And he won’t if he knows...he won’t.”
“Sure thing, boss lady.”