“It doesn’t look like good news.”
“It’s not,” he says simply, and then he tells me.
He tells me that Tino, the great Don Augustino Morelli, legend and lord of New York City, is dead.
That Connie is in the hospital, and probably won’t make it.
That half the Morelli Family have defected to Sam Fuscone, and half of the ones who stayed loyal are now dead anyway.
And that he, Luciano D’Amato, is the new Boss of the Morelli Family, such as it is.
It’s a lot to take in. “Isn’t it the D’Amato Family now?” I ask, because my head is swimming and I have to start somewhere.
Luca gives a small smile. “It doesn’t work that way. We’ve been the Morellis for generations, and I’m not going to change that now. The name has power. Besides, angel, there’s something else I need to tell you. Angelo gave me a copy of Tino’s will. He changed it not long ago, after Connie got pregnant, I think.”
“Okay?” I say with a frown. I don’t see how this has anything to do with anything.
“He left half his fortune to his child by Connie, predicated on the fact that it is born, and, well, that it’shis.”
I snort. “He’s no fool. But neither’s Connie, and I bet that baby’s Tino’s. She wouldn’t risk running around on him. She was so happy when she told me…” I trail off. “Luca, we have to protect her. And if we can’t—if she dies—we have to take care of their kid. Promise me.”
He takes my hands. “I promise you we will. But there’s more.” He takes a deep breath. “The other half of his fortune goes to you.”
I give a faint huff of laughter. “Yeah, okay.”
Luca says nothing.
“Wait, are youserious?”
“Baby bird, I wouldn’t be making jokes at a time like this.” He swallows. “Tino left it to you because…I really didn’t want to tell you like this, but, uh—”
I feel cold all over. “You’d better just tell me,” I say, but my voice sounds far away to my own ears.
“You were—youare—Tino Morelli’s son. His son by Orla Fincher Donovan. Your mother, uh…” He pauses, thinking, trying to find the right words.
I guess I can’t blame him. There’s no good way to tell someone their mom was running around on their dad. Theirnot-dad, in fact. “Well, shit,” I say. “Everything Maggie said makes a lot more sense right now.” My voice sounds light, butI’mnot.
The whole world is shifting around me, and I’m trying to grasp on to the new sense of things, but it’s like trying to hold water. I remember Maggie’s words, the hatred in her face as she said it.I am my father’s daughter. But you—you’re just some mutt.
“But I never knew…” I start, and then the truth of it hits me. I never had the chance to get to know Tino, not as my father. I’m an orphan now, and I never even had the chance to know my father before he died. “It’s—it’s not fair…”
Luca pulls me close and holds me while I cry, his hand rubbing up and down my back. He doesn’t tell me everything is going to be okay. I’m glad about that, because it would be a lie.
There’s nothing okay about this at all.
* * *
The next fewdays pass in a blur for me. We go to funerals, so many funerals, for the men who died with Tino and finally, for Tino himself. There are large gatherings in the townhouse, lots of muttering men and alcohol and toasts and memories shared, but I try to stay upstairs with Celia and think about other things.
There’s one good thing, and even this is not a good thing: Connie’s not dead. Only she’s not alive, either. Celia goes to visit her every day, and I go several times a week. The doctors tell us she can’t hear us, but we hold her hand anyway and tell her lies. That she’ll be okay. That we’ll get the best care for her when she wakes up.
She’s not going to wake up. But her baby is growing, and Celia got hysterical when the doctors suggested we take Connie off life support. She couldn’t stand the idea that the baby wouldn’t get a shot at life, and neither could I. This kid is going to be my baby brother or sister, after all. So we all agreed in the end that once the baby is born, we’ll revisit Connie’s treatment.
That’s another lie, though. Connie’s soul is already gone, and once the baby is born, I’ll ask the doctors to turn off life support.
On the other hand, everything Luca told me turned out to be true.
We’ve speculated together on justwhenTino knew I was his kid, why he was so sure, why he never said anything about it until so long after we were married… At least one of our questions was answered, though, when Marco sheepishly owned up to having provided some of my hairs to Tino at his private request. And Luca found a letter locked in Tino’s safe from a lab, confirming my status as his child. It was dated the same day he changed his will.
