Delia prattled on about the upcoming gala; it was one that was dear to my heart. Dr. Gideon Scott threw his Foundation Ball every year to raise money for abused and traumatized children. It was the one event I looked forward to and supported financially with pride.
“What color are you wearing?”
“What?” I asked, her question pulling me from my thoughts.
“I’m wearing pink. Felicia, I heard, is wearing gray. Can you imagine?”
“Gray? Do you mean silver?”
“Gray, silver, it’s the same thing.” She waved her hand, dismissing my opinion. It wasn’t the same at all. “What color is your dress?”
“Black.”
“Black?” Delia scrunched up her nose. “How in the world will you stand out in black?”
“I don’t want to stand out. The charity isn’t about me; I’m there to support what Dr. Scott is doing.”
Delia just blinked at me like I’d spoken in another language. I hated this city. Everyone in New York was selfish and self-centered. They didn’t go to these fundraisers to help the charity.I would bet my inheritance that Delia didn’t even know what Dr. Scott did, or who he helped.
I should have paid better attention to what I was saying. Because when it got back to my husband, my simple statement about not wanting to stand out had been blown out of proportion, and Nolan believed I was ashamed of being seen with him.
Which I was, but that wasn’t what I meant.
I didn’t end up attending that year. My face was bruised, and no amount of makeup would have covered the split lip. But Nolan went without me and hadn’t come home for two days.
I’d avoided seeing my brother for weeks so he wouldn’t know. He still didn’t know. Neither did Cian. It was a secret I would take to the grave. It didn’t matter now, anyway. Nolan was dead, and I was... I wanted to say free, but I’d never be free.
I looked around Cian’s apartment. It was beautiful and modern, open but cozy. It felt lived in. It felt like home. But the truth was, I’d gone from one gilded cage to another.
Maybe Maddie was right.
Maybe I, too, needed a purpose.
I noticed the files on the island in the kitchen. Cian had been through them. He’d underlined the names we needed to focus on. But his focus was split. Between trying to find out who had bugged the warehouse and sent the voice recording, while still trying to locate the men who had broken into my home, he hadn’t had much time to dig into the names in the files.
But I could.
I spread the files out on the kitchen table. There were five names listed. One of them stood out to me. Maddie’s father-in-law, Valentino Valentinetti.
Maddie had never met him, so I couldn’t ask her. He died years before she’d met Salvatore. I went to Cian’s office and satbehind his desk. I typed the name into the search bar and read everything I could find about Valentino Valentinetti.
I wasn’t a technology person like Cian. Sure, I knew how to use a computer, and I knew how to look things up. But everything I’d found about Valentinetti was business related.
Except for how he died.
I read article after article about the car bomb that killed Valentino and his brother Eduardo. But nothing about who had set the bomb. The case was still unsolved.
Which meant it was Mafia related.
The authorities would never know who killed the two men. But someone did. I sat there staring at the screen, wondering who I could ask.
“Mom? Are you here?”
“Back here, Maddie,” I called out.
She smiled when she saw me sitting at her father’s desk. I knew she was happy to see us together. And I was happy too; I just... I couldn’t pinpoint exactly what I was feeling. There was an empty space inside me that still wasn’t filled.
“What are you doing?”
