38. Amara
Amara
I stretch under the sheets, savoring the lingering scent of both men on the pillows, and the smell of fresh coffee wafting through the house.
My body aches in places I didn’t know could ache, but it’s a delicious soreness that brings a smile to my face.
The events of yesterday replay in my mind. The three of us together was something new and beautiful. I never imagined I could have both men in my life, but somehow, impossibly, it’s happening. I didn’t have to choose.
I slip out of bed, grabbing Dom’s discarded shirt from the floor, lifting it to my nose and sniffing it before pulling it over my head and making my way barefoot toward the kitchen.
Caleb stands at the counter, his back to me, humming softly as he pours coffee into a mug. He’s wearing only his jeans from yesterday, his broad back bare apart from the scratches from my fingernails.
“Morning,” I say, leaning against the doorframe.
He turns, a smile spreading across his face. “There she is.” He holds out the mug to me. “I was just about to bring this to you.”
I cross the kitchen and take the offered coffee, our fingers brushing. “Thank you.”
He leans down and presses a soft kiss to my lips. “How are you feeling?”
“Good. Sore, but good.” I take a sip of the coffee, savoring the rich flavor. “Where’s Dom?”
“Living room. Detective Ingram is here with more news about your mother’s death.”
My stomach tightens. “That was fast. Do you think they found something on Dom?”
Caleb shrugs, turning to pour himself a cup. “Hard to say. But if Dom was in real trouble, they’d arrest him, not make a house call.”
“That’s good to know,” I say. “But it’s still my mother, so I’d like to know what they’ve found out.”
“Okay, you go. I’ll be in the kitchen. I want to call Poppy and check she is okay, anyway.”
“I’d like to see Poppy,” I tell him. “Maybe in the next few days. We don’t have to tell her about us. Not until you’re ready. I’d just like to see her as a friend.”
He smiles. “We’ll organize that.”
I leave Caleb, rush to my room and change into something more respectable, and then I grab my coffee cup and make my way to the living room.
“...and how well do you know Lucia Gallo?” the detective asks.
Dom is sitting on the couch, his posture rigid as he speaks with Detective Ingram.
“She’s the daughter of my friend, Eduardo,” he responds.
Her eyes flick to mine as I walk into the living room.
“Miss Bailey,” Detective Ingram says, standing. “I’m Detective Ingram. We’ve met before, though you might not remember me.”
“I remember…everything after the accident,” I say.
I take a seat next to Dom, feeling his body heat as our thighs touch. His hand finds mine, squeezing gently in silent support.
I sip my coffee, watching Detective Ingram’s face carefully. She has that look—the one people get when they’re about to deliver news that will change everything.
“I was telling Mr. de Luca that we’ve been reviewing the security footage from outside Angels and Sinners,” she says, pulling out her tablet. “We have an image of the driver who hit you.”
My heart pounds against my ribs. I set my coffee down; afraid I might drop it.
“Who was it?” I mutter, trying to catch my breath.
“We believe it was Lucia Gallo,” Detective Ingram says, turning the tablet toward me.
I swallow back the lump in my throat as I stare at the image. It’s a woman with a dark coat and a hood over hiding her face. She is wearing high heels.
“Heels. That’s the noise that was going over and over in my head. But are you sure it’s this Lucia woman?” I ask as acid burns in my chest. “I don’t even know her.”
She nods. “Yes, the person walking toward you from the car and back again was definitely a woman. And we believe that the woman was Lucia Gallo. We believe your hit and run was a case of mistaken identity. Because we now have proof that her father, Eduardo Gallo, had paid for an assassin to find and kill your sister Aurelia.”
A gasp escapes my lips. I turn and stare at Dom. “The car bomb. It was my sister who was targeted?”
The detective answers, “Unfortunately. I’m waiting for Eduardo to show his face to question him, as we believe he was involved because of the assassin he hired, but he seems to have disappeared, along with the assassin.”
“I’ll make some calls,” Dom says, his voice deadly calm.
“But why was Lucia targeting my sister?”
“I can give a good theory on that,” Dom says. “She was supposed to be the one who married my son, Dante.” Dom stares at me. “At least that means you’re safe.”
I nod, staring at the floor.
“Did Lucia or Eduardo kill my mother?” My eyes lift and I lock eyes with the detective.
“That’s something else I have news on. We’ve taken Mayor Anderson into custody. We believe your mother tried to blackmail him and…” She stares at me, her eyes narrowing slightly as if trying to read my reaction. “Can you tell me why we found photos of you and Anderson having dinner?”
My spine straightens. “It was lunch. Mom was a good friend of the mayors, and she organized for me to have a meeting with him to discuss my future. She wanted me to go into politics.” I shift uncomfortably in my seat, feeling the weight of Detective Ingram’s scrutiny.
“At a lunch meeting?” Her tone is skeptical, one eyebrow raised.
I laugh, though it comes out more nervous than I intended.
“She was there too…my mother. I never met him alone...never.” I lean forward, my heart racing as pieces start connecting in my mind. I stare at her for a moment and whisper, “Did the mayor kill my mom, or was it Lucia?”
Her expression gives nothing away as she writes some notes in her notepad, then shuts it with a definitive snap and says, “That investigation is ongoing, but what you’ve just told me will be key to solving it.”
Caleb left the house early this morning, leaving me alone with Dom, who’s been looking at me suspiciously. Or am I being paranoid?
The detective’s visit has left me shaken, but Dom’s already informed me that despite the detective being evasive about the mayor, according to Dom’s sources within police circles, the mayor was in custody and facing imminent charges for Helena’s homicide.
According to his informant, the mayor had attempted to coerce Helena into divulging information about Dom, but she’d flipped the situation by using the photographs of us having lunch against him, suggesting an illicit affair behind his wife’s back.
And now Dom believes he was the person trying to blackmail me.
The mayor is refuting everything, naturally, because it turns out he was having an affair, but with my mother. But that was with the intention that his ultimate goal had been to undermine Dom’s position.
He used her, and she used me.
“Neither the mayor nor Lucia tried to kill you, did they?” Dom’s deep voice takes me out of my musing.
I gaze at him as he sits across from me, his piercing blue eyes studying me with an intensity that normally thrills me but today terrifies me.
I offer him a cryptic smile. “I couldn’t say.”
He grasps my hand, guiding me to his office where he seats me in his chair behind the desk. He gestures around the space. “No cameras point toward my seat. Now speak freely.”
“Disable the surveillance and then I’ll talk.”
His lips curve upward. “You don’t trust me.”
“I do. But I don’t trust you can’t be hacked.”
He accesses an application on his phone. After showing me the household, he locates his office and suspends the recording for half an hour.
I look down at my hands, watching them tremble slightly. “I don’t know where to start.”
Dom reaches across the desk, taking my hands in his. “Piccola, I need you to trust me. Whatever happened, whatever you remember—I need to know.”
My eyes fill with tears. “You’ll hate me.”
“Never.” The conviction in his voice nearly breaks me. “Just tell me everything, then I know what I need to do.”
Our eyes lock as I take a deep breath. “I remember being at the club that night. I remember running out and being scared.” I pause, gathering courage.
"Go on," he urges.
“I thought it was you at first. But then I recalled hearing heels on the pavement. High heels, clicking rapidly.”
“Chasing you.”
I shake my head, a tear slipping down my cheek. “No, when I was on the floor. After the car hit me.”
Dom’s jaw tightens. “And then?”
“She got in her car. I thought she was going to call an ambulance and come back to me, but she drove off...” I trail off, the memory still fragmented but terrifying.
“She left you to die,” Dom says, his voice deadly calm. “And who was it?”
“You already know. It was Helena.”
“Your mom,” he says, but he does already know and was waiting for me to confirm it.
“Yes.” The word comes out as a sob. “The woman who brought me up tried to kill me.”
Dom stands, coming around the desk to pull me into his arms. I bury my face against his chest, breathing in his scent as his muscular arms encircle me.
“I didn’t want to believe it,” I whisper against his shirt. “Even with my memory in pieces, something felt wrong about her. And when my memories came back, I didn't want to believe it, at first.”
Dom strokes my hair. “You’re safe now, piccola. She can’t hurt you anymore.”
I pull back slightly, looking up at him. “When did you work it out?” I ask, my voice shaky.
“She was added to my list of suspects at the family dinner. I could tell you were honing in on a memory and you glanced at Helena’s shoes. Those were her footsteps you remembered, not Lucia’s.”
I nod slowly, my heart pounding against my ribs.
Dom’s brow furrows as he processes everything. “But why would she try to kill you? What did she have to gain?”
I swallow hard. My mouth suddenly dries.
“The mayor was blackmailing her for information on you. He believed it would further his career to take you down. And apparently, I was collateral damage when she tried to use me against the mayor to gain an advantage against him. She thought that was her way of getting more money from you and used me against you both.” I swallow as tears sting my eyes.
I glance up to the ceiling and add, “She wanted to hurt you, too. She saw the way you looked at me. She told me I was supposed to die.”
“When did she tell you this?”
“Just before her life ended.” I pause, my fingers trembling slightly as I recall that night.
His mouth drops open.
I cannot stop.
“She admitted she wanted me gone. She thought you'd be so grief stricken you'd want her here. Then she could have this house, you and the money that came with it.”
His jaw tightens. “Why didn’t you tell me? You didn’t need to do this alone.”
I nod slowly. “I didn’t. Milly helped me.”
“Oh my god, Amara. You asked Milly, of all people. You will have left evidence.”
“We didn’t. But Mayor Anderson did.”
Dom smiles. “Are you sure about that?”
I smile at Dom, feeling a strange sense of calm wash over me. “I am. Milly and I concocted quite the plan.”
Dom’s eyes narrow slightly. “Tell me everything.”
“Milly tracked Mayor Anderson’s movements.
She found out he and his wife were having dinner at Palazzo Versace.
Milly went there alone, sat at the bar and waited.
After they ate, the mayor left the table to take a call while his wife was speaking to another lady.
Milly strode past the table and stole his cutlery.
” I can’t help but feel a little proud of my sister’s boldness.
“Then what?” Dom asks.
“Milly made a beautiful meal for two at Mom’s apartment. She borrowed a gun—she thought it was Enzo’s, but it turned out to be Con’s.”
Dom’s jaw drops. “Con’s gun? Jesus Christ, Amara.”
I shrug, trying to appear more nonchalant than I feel. “We didn’t know.”
“And your mother? She just let you both in?”
“She was surprised to see us, but not suspicious. I asked her why she did it—why she was prepared to let me die.” My voice cracks slightly.
“She looked me right in the eyes and said I was ‘surplus to requirements.’ That I failed to get her more money, but once you had paid her off, she didn’t need me anymore.
She wanted me gone. She was scared I’d work it out sooner than I did. ”
Dom’s face darkens with rage. “That bitch.”
“Milly set the table with the meal she’d prepared. Mom asked what she was doing, and Milly just said, ‘We made your dinner.’ So simple.”
“You would’ve been on camera. They’ll find out that you and Milly were there,” Dom says, running a hand through his hair.
I shake my head. “Lia dealt with that before we went there.”
“Lia knew too?” Dom says, incredulous.
“Lia organized it once I told her everything Mom did. She was so angry that both Mom and the mayor used me that she was the one who decided he could be the fall guy.”
Dom stares at me. “So you poisoned her?”
Nobody knows yet how she died.
“No, I thought I shot her with the same gun I thought was used to kill a detective who the mayor sent to threaten me. A detective that Mateo killed.”
“Fuck, you set up Con.” Dom’s eyes are wide with disbelief.
“No, Enzo told Milly that Con sliced the detective's throat. But we set up the mayor. We left his hotel cutlery at the apartment. We made it look like he killed her before she got to eat. Made it look like he was a cold-blooded killer. That he ate afterward.”
“But the gun?”
“It’s gone. That’s the beauty of Australia. It’s so big that people, guns, can disappear and are never seen again. You know that.”