Hope snorts. “Sasha isn’t a gentleman.”
“Excuse me. What do you mean by that?”
“Sasha lives by his own set of rules and won’t stand on propriety. Sasha lives on the fringes of civility. He doesn’t care what most people think. I love that about him.”
My head starts throbbing in that painful dad-moment kind of way. “Hope.”
“Dad, you’re getting distracted. We were talking about what happened yesterday, not Sasha’s perchant to kill people.”
And this is the kid I picked to protect my daughter? I need to check on that aneurysm. “Everett thinks Nonna is his mother.”
Hope gapes at me, stopping in the middle of the sidewalk. “WHAT? But that would mean he’s my uncle, but my age. Isn’t he fifteen? That would be impossible. Nonna came back before I was born. Could he be older than he looks? Guys can do that just like girls can. Is he my uncle? That would be so cool.”
“Hope, I said, he thinks that. Not that he is related to you.”
“Why would he lie?”
Oh, my sweet innocent little girl. “Because we’re rich.”
“Even more reason not to lie. He knows you’re going to check his DNA to see if what he’s saying is true. And he knows you have the money to make his life miserable if he lied. That would be stupid, and Everett isn’t stupid. It took him about ten seconds to hack into the game. He might be almost as smart as you are.”
“Mentally unstable people—”
Hope laughs. “Everett isn’t unstable.” She shakes her head. “No way. I bet he isn’t lying.”
“That would mean your Nonna is.”
“Oh…oh.” Hope turns and starts walking again with a far-off look in her eyes.
I catch up with her, taking her hand in mine like I used to do when she was little, to offer what comfort I can.
“Dad.”
“Yeah, Hope?”
“You need to test his DNA.”
“You really believe him over your nonna?” Mom ran away to protect us. Would she lie to protect us?
Absolutely. There’s nothing Mom wouldn’t do. I have no doubt, not even for one second, that she’d take a bullet for any one of us. A lie would be nothing compared to that.
But that would mean…she thinks she’s protecting Everett.
Everett could be my brother.
And Mom could have something scary in her past that she’s trying to shelter all of us from.
“I trust Nonna.” Hope squeezes my hand.
So do I. And now I need to find a way to steal the kid’s DNA.
“Dad, I’m going to be good at this job, right? My boss is really nice. Fiona…that’s what she asked me to call her. That or Fea, but it doesn’t seem right to call my boss Fea. At least not yet.She seemed so nice yesterday. But more than that, she was crazy brave. It made Nonno mad.”
How was she crazy brave? The idea of Fiona taking risks irks me. “What did she do?”
“She didn’t flinch when talking to that man Nonno sent you a picture of. There were all sorts of bad vibes coming from his direction. I kind of expected Nonno to toss him out of the place or step between the two of them, but he watched her handle it. I want to be like that when I grow up.”
No, Hope doesn’t need to try and take any more risks. My little girl is too bold and brave for my sanity as it is.
