Pride mingled with apprehension as I watched three of the most important men closest to my heart like a hawk, ready to inflict damage should they harm my woman.
‘Yes. I… was there… in the church the day your… Isabella?—’
‘Do. Not. Fucking. Speak her name.’
She flinched.
‘Rafa.’
‘Why were you there? To kill her?’ This came from my father, his eyes sharper than I’d seen in years.
‘No! Of course not,’ replied Maddelena, horrified.
‘Then why?’ he pressed.
She swallowed, years of sadness pinching her face. ‘It was a stupid, horrible coincidence. My mom wanted to go. She’d heard her childhood priest was visiting from Napoli.’
Orazio smirked. ‘Ah, yes, your mama. A pious little thing, afraid of her own shadow. It’s a miracle she birthed someone like you with a little spirit. And the other odd one, what’s her name?’ He snapped his fingers.
‘Sofiya,’ Rafaelle supplied, a weird little glint lighting his eyes before they turned that deadly shade of unhinged fury again.
‘Yeah. I don’t know much about the other two but?—’
‘Nonno…’
The old man glanced at Rafaelle, then nodded and waved for her to continue.
She cleared her throat. ‘Anyway, she wanted to see him, ask him to hear her confession. And she brought me and Giada with her.’
‘Why?’
Her gaze darted to me, pained embarrassment in her eyes. She saw her sleepwalking as a flaw. Probably even more than the dangerous sleep talking.
‘It’s not important why,’ I answered for her. ‘It was just one of El Topo’s bullshit rules to make the women in his house fall in line that they couldn’t confess to anyone he didn’t approve of.’
Orazio’s eyes narrowed. ‘And this priest wasn’t one of them?’
She shook her head. ‘He wasn’t on the top of his list, no.’
‘What was his name?’ my father asked.
Her gaze swung to him. ‘Father Calogero.’
We all locked the name tight in our memory banks.
‘So she went for confession, then what?’
‘It was my turn. Mom and Giada were waiting in the vestibule when I heard the gunshots… and the screaming.’ Her beautiful face twisted with the memory. ‘Father Calogero asked me to stay in the booth, and I did at first, but I was scared something would happen to Mom and Giada. So I went looking for them.’ She sucked in a shaky breath. ‘That’s when I saw… them.’
‘Them who?’ Rafa barked.
She jumped. I squeezed her hand while glaring ineffectually at my brother. His entire focus was pinned on Maddelena.
‘My mom and Giada were kneeling over… over your mom. I thought Giada had been shot. She had so much blood…’ She shook her head. ‘But it was your mom who’d been shot.’
‘By your sister?’
Maddelena paled, and I growled under my breath. This was fucking torture. For her. For me. But she had to get through it. Once. I was never putting her through this again.
