“That’s fine by me. After you talk to him, invite Sailor over for dinner. I haven't seen her in a while, now that she’s not coming by to check on me every day.”
My tie was suddenly strangling me, so I loosened it as I did what he told me. First, I sent Sailor a text, hoping she’d see it between surgeries, and then I called Gio from my room.
“Now you have to lie directly to her every time you’re together,” he said after I’d filled him in.
Sighing, I replied, “And it’s already killing me after less than twelve hours.”
“How the fuck do you spend your life living that kind of lie?”
As though I hadn't asked myself that very question a hundred times already. “I don’t know, Gio. I don't know what to do. If I tell her, she’ll leave me, and possibly expose me.”
“I’m shocked that Benito knew about this all along and didn't say anything. Not only that he knew the wife and child were in the car that night, but that he knew Sailor's true identity all along and still pushed you into marrying her.”
“Yeah, well, he thinks we can heal each other.” Very desperately, I wished I could ease some of the tension in my body. “And, according to him, he was shielding me.”
“He has a funny way of doing that.”
“Lying to my face and saying it’s to protect me? Yeah, it’s hilarious.”
The flick of Gio’s lighter over the phone speaker made me seriously consider picking up smoking. “I heard from Roman that Benito identified the blond man.”
“He’s Matteo Franco, a cousin we didn't know existed. He’s been keeping to the shadows, playing the long game even better than my mother’s murderer.”
Gio sighed. “Sailor will eventually have questions about her relative. Where he’s been, why you might know him, all of that.”
“Goddammit, I hadn't even thought of that yet.” I gripped the phone so tightly my knuckles hurt. “I’ve been so focused on the obvious that he slipped my mind. She knows they’re relatedbecause of the resemblance, so she’ll ask why we had a picture of him and how he’s involved in our business.”
“You’d better do some damage control as soon as possible. Hopefully, she won't want to meet him.”
My stomach churned. “Dad wants to have her over for dinner, so I’ll lay some groundwork tonight and make it clear he’s dangerous.”
But was he any more dangerous than me and my father? Or was I in so deep that I had been pretending I wasn’t the same scum as Matteo Franco and the rest of the Lombardi family?
“Sounds like you’ll have to perfect your poker face, Noah.”
“Don’t remind me.”
Gio was right. As soon as we sat down to eat at the table in my father’s room, Sailor asked why we were digging into the guy in the picture.
Carefully, I replied, “Apparently, he’s your father’s cousin. But, you see, he’s not a nice guy. He’s working with our enemy to take us down.”
“He wants to kill you both instead of making peace?” She set her fork down. “Wait, was he the one who bombed your house?”
Dad spoke up. “Yes,cara mio. Unfortunately, that’s the world we live in.”
Poking at her food, she shook her head. “All those years I spent in foster care, and I had a living relative who could have taken me in.”
My heart picked up its pace at the very thought. What type of person would she have become if she’d grown up in that household? It was strange how the tiniest of shifts in our lives could change our destiny entirely. “He’s not built for childcare, Sailor. He’s a cold-blooded killer.”
Just like me.
Her eyes widened when she looked up. “Is it possible he killed my father so he could take over his business?”
Dad covered her hand with his. “Anything is possible.”
“How awful.”
“On a lighter note,” I said, desperate to direct the subject away from all the lying, “my realtor sent me a house listing. It looks promising, if you want me to set up a viewing sometime this week.”
