“He told you he slept with your mother a week before our wedding. He said it in front of your mother. Did she deny it?”
She didn’t, but I can’t give him the satisfaction of acknowledging it. This is clearly some fucked up ploy. This cannot be fucking right. Tommy is the love of my life. God is not that cruel.
I stare at Tommy, silently begging for help.
Tommy clears his throat, but his voice still comes out hoarse. “Gi, when Aurelio came to your apartment after we broke up, when he told you he would kill me if you didn’t end the relationship, what exactly did he say?”
I throw the soaking wet towel in the sink. “I don’t remember his exact words! He said he would kill my parents, have me raped, and then he said that if I thought he wouldn’t kill his own child to get what he wants—”
Tommy’s eyes close slowly, his chin lowering to his chest, and I start to panic.
“What? That doesn’t mean anything! Youarehis child! He wasn’t talking about Vin!”
“He was talking about you,” Tommy says quietly. “When I confronted him about using me to threaten you, he told me he never threatened my life. He was threatening your life. You just assumed he meant me.”
I shake my head at him. Impossible. I whip back to my father. “But—how—I mean, Mom doesn’t have affairs. You do—”
“Your mother was trying to get me to leave her, and trust me, if I could have, I would. But the boss of the family at the time, he wanted us together. I slept with her one time, on our wedding night, and she told me afterward that she was already pregnant. I haven’t touched her since.”
Nothing about him is confrontational. He just looks sad. It makes me queasy, and I suddenly feel the need to escape all of this.
Without acknowledging my father, without looking at Tommy, I get up and head back to our bedroom and shut the door quietly.
The bed is still a mess, exactly how we left it. We fucked all night and all morning after Dr. Rossi left. So happy. Ecstatic. True joy.
And now this.
Tears are threatening to spill down my face, but I won’t let them. I call my mother instead, pacing. She doesn’t answer, and I call back three times. Finally, she picks up.
“Darling, I’m a little busy right now.” She sounds almost as drunk as my dad.
“Is Aurelio my father?”
There’s silence on the line for a moment, then my mother curses under her breath. “Is your father with you?”
“Answer the question.” I grip the phone tightly.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake. This is not a conversation to be had over the phone, Giovanna. Where are you right now?”
“Home. Upper West Side. Why won’t you just answer me?”
“I’ll be there as soon as I can.”
“Mom—”
But she’s already hung up.
Tommy opens the door, his face white as a sheet, and I startle. “Probably not smart to leave my father alone—”
I snap my mouth shut, hearing myself say ‘my father’ and swallow down bile. It’s just not possible. Lorenzo was a shitty enough father—but Aurelio? Fuck.
“The guards are with him.” He looks down at his phone, then up at me. “Are you alright?”
I’m trying not to cry. Fuck, he looks like he’s trying not to lose it, too, and that just makes it worse. I barely shake my head. I can’t speak without falling apart.
He nods. As always, he understands me without me having to say a word.
I don’t know what we’re going to do.
