Chapter 18
Piper
Inever in a million years dreamed that I’d one day be sitting at a table, sharing a delicious breakfast with Logan Colt, while looking at baby pictures of myself with him.
And yet, that’s exactly what I’m doing.
For the past half-hour, I’ve been munching on eggs cooked sunny-side up, crispy bacon, and even avocado toast, which reminds me that my stepfather is very much a millennial.
“She’s beautiful,” I breathe as I turn the pages of the photo album, watching various pictures of me with a woman in her early twenties, her red curls like a halo around her face, her slim face pale and freckled, her features delicate and her expression tender.
“Just like you,” declares Logan.
I snort out a laugh. “I’m nothing like her. Look at my glasses, for one.”
I point to the thick glasses Logan has purchased for me. He didn’t even try to get me a nicer pair. He somehow hunted down the exact same ridiculous round frames I’ve been wearing all my life, because they were the cheapest model I’d found.
The least he could have done was get me a nicer pair, but maybe he figured I was attached to the bug-eye ones.
“I like them,” he smiles. “Lia wore contacts most of the time, but she was just as beautiful when she wore glasses. You are the living, breathing image of her.”
I don’t even know this person who is supposedly my mother, but I’m already finding myself attached to her. It makes me happy that Logan has favorably compared me to her. Even though I can’t understand how he can possibly see a resemblance.
“It’s not only my appearance. I just… I feel so stupid and awkward all the time.
I can’t count the number of people who’ve called me annoying.
I feel annoying every time I open my mouth.
” The words come gushing out of me, choking at my throat.
I don’t understand how I can be showing such vulnerability to a guy I just met, when I never even shared those thoughts with the man who raised me.
“This girl… Lia… my mother.... She has such an air of confidence about her. I wish I could be like that.”
I sigh longingly at her, gingerly touching the plastified face with my index finger. It hurts to lose someone I never even realized I had.
Then I startle as, looking up to take a swig of the coffee Logan has assured me was decaf, I notice him looking at me.
There’s a mix of sadness and love in his eyes that makes me feel a bit unsettled.
“You’re perfect the way you are,” he says simply. “And I know Lia would have loved you… had she lived. And I loved you too. I still love you. You’re my daughter, and you always will be.”
I swallow painfully. A thousand questions crowd my mind. I want to know why, if he really sees me as a daughter, he let me go. Why did he leave me to struggle with poverty, to face my bullies, to… to be raped in his own tower?
He seems to be struggling under the weight of some questions of his own as he watches me. I suddenly remember his words when I first met him. I’d been so confused by them.
Write me the list of everyone who’s made fun of you.
Has anything like that ever happened to you?
He seems very tuned in to the word vomit I just spewed, and I suspect he’s hesitating to ask me to make a list again.
Before he can form his questions, before I’m too tempted to voice my own, I instead say, “I just can’t believe Dad… I mean, William Day…”
“Dad,” he corrects me. “There’s no one who better deserves that title than William Day.”
“Right.” I swallow again at this new confusing situation that does nothing to lessen the pain I feel when I think of Dad’s death. It only makes it all the more bitter. “How can he have lied to me?”
“He didn’t lie.”
“He never in a million years even hinted at the fact that I was adopted!” I cry out. “Let alone that my parents were in the mafia, and that I was raised until I was four by one of the founders of Devil! I didn’t know he had it in him to conceal that stuff from me.”
“He didn’t know.”
“Huh?”
“He didn’t know,” repeats Logan, as if I hadn’t heard him the first time.
“But… but…” I frown in confusion. “You said…”
“I said he adopted you. He made the decision, like some adoptive parents do, not to tell you, because he didn’t want it to change the way you viewed him. That doesn’t mean he knew who your birth father was.”
“But… but my mom…” I begin.
“Laura already had you when he met her.”
I shake my head, wondering once more if I’m really the person Logan thinks I am. Because that’s not true. I know it’s not true.
“They were married before I was born,” I inform him.
“I know,” smiles Logan. “I had my contacts draw up that document too.”
I frown, rubbing the bridge of my nose. “I don’t get it.”
Logan sighs. “Laura is an Astley girl. I guess you know that. When everything… turned to shit, I brought Lia to the hospital, with you. She…” He grits his teeth and pushes out the last words.
“She didn’t make it that night. I had a four-year-old child in my arms and a whole lot of people who wanted you dead. ”
“Why?” I breathe.
“Every single member of your family had died. Apart from you.”
My eyes widen. “They were killed… by you. By Devil.”
Logan hesitates. “It’s a little more complicated than that.
Everything happened at once. In a single bloody night.
There was a lot of tension, tension that had been boiling for years.
Your birth father did meet his death at…
” His eyes darken. “... at my hands. But that was just the catalyst for a whole lot of self-destruction. The capo, Arsenio Moretti, was not a popular man.”
“So…” I try to figure out the significance of what he’s saying. “So I’m the one surviving member of the… uhm, capo’s family.” It feels weird using the term, that’s only vaguely familiar due to my having read a few dark mafia romances just to see what the fuss was about.
Then I went straight back to Agatha Christie. Romances are definitely not my thing. Especially not dark ones. I have enough toxic bullshit in my real life to deal with.
“Exactly,” nods Logan. “Which definitely makes you a pain in a lot of people’s asses.” I raise an eyebrow. “Not because of you,” he adds hastily. “Because of who you are. The last surviving legitimate member of the Moretti family. The capo’s granddaughter.”
“Okay.” I blow out a breath. “What happened at the hospital?”
“Well, I didn’t have much time,” regrets Logan. “Laura happened to be there. I’d never met her before. She had just been given the all-clear by the doctor.”
“The… all-clear?” I repeat, though my heart sinks. I already know.
“Ovarian cancer,” he says quietly. “I spoke to her a bit. She seemed kind. I ran a quick background check on her, and decided to hand you off to her. Hardest thing I’ve ever done. But I had to do something drastic, if I wanted you to live.”
“But…” I frown. “The mafia was defeated. I mean, Devil took its place. That’s what everyone says. They’re no longer able to come to this state. No?”
“Right, but it took a few years for that to happen. A few very difficult years. So I created a program of my own. Bought a plane ticket for Laura, sent her to the West Coast, got her a house. Helped her start over. She met William in California.”
I nod my head. This all makes sense… I guess. And yet…
“Why did you never make yourself known?” I ask, my voice tight. “Once Devil grew more powerful. Why didn’t you come back to get me?”
Logan studies me. “Would you have liked me to?”
“Yes—I mean, no… I don’t know.” I flush painfully, thinking of how much I loved my parents. Thinking how hard it would have been to lose them. And yet, at the same time, thinking how much simpler it would have been not to deal with all the shit I had to deal with growing up.
“I had promised your mother I wouldn’t be involved. It took several years for everything to calm down, and she’d been raising you. William was your father. I was very much aware that I had no right to you anymore. I did my best to look after you from afar, though. Until you came back to Astley.”
“You wanted us to come back,” I guess.
“No,” he says quickly, and I frown in renewed confusion.
“That was the last thing I wanted. I was furious when I learned it. Your mother’s cancer had returned, and I understood her motivation to return to her hometown.
But I was beside myself with anxiety. Especially when I found out William had gotten a job at Devil Tower, of all places.
The thought of you in this town drove me crazy.
The closer you were to me, the more dangerous it was.
I could help in California, but I couldn’t do a thing for you in Astley.
I was aware you were struggling, but my hands were tied.
Of course, if it had gotten too dire, I would have helped. But it would have been dangerous.”
“But why?” I insist. “Why was I in danger? Why am I in danger, if the mafia’s gone? Why was Damien thinking of killing me?”
“He had warned me. The second you stepped out of that program—”
“What program?”
His features relax into a smile. “I guess some of the ways we spoke back in the mafia days have remained ingrained in me. The program is the witness protection program. You weren’t in a real one, but I did try to create one for you.
When you returned to Astley, you were dangerously close to leaving that program, but your mother managed to maintain your anonymity.
Giving you the least bit of help risked blowing that cover. But anyway…”
“Damien,” I say, as he gulps down the remainder of his coffee.
“Right. He had warned me that you were only safe as long as you were in the program. The minute you stepped out, he’d have to kill you.”
“But why?”
“Your death is the one thing stopping this whole thing from turning into absolute war.”
My eyes widen. “My death?”