“You … you must know what he is capable of. I wondered, when I first me you, if you understood the depths of his depravity. I still can’t be certain.” His face was ashen. “Did you know, for example, that he took money from the mob? That he took bribes to imprison innocent men? To find against them when no facts could support such a verdict?”
“No,” she shook her head and winced at the slash of pain that radiated from her scalp. “I … don’t believe him capable of that. My father is a servant to justice. If you could only hear the lectures I endured about the importance of upholding the law; respecting authority …”
“Words are cheap,” he spat, forgetting for a moment that it was not her he felt the burning hatred for. “In reality, your father sent my father to prison for a crime more hateful than you can imagine.” He studied her as the words sunk in.
“What crime? When?”
Benedetto shook his head. “Years ago. The rape and violent murder of a young girl.”
Kate gasped. “It’s not true.”
“Of course it is not. It was undoubtedly his former colleagues.” He spat the word with derision. “Looking for a way to punish him for having left the mob, they pinned it on him. A payment to your father saw him locked up for life.” His words were louder and harder than he’d intended. “He deserved so much better. He was the best of men. In contrast to Augustine, my father was good and kind; a man who should have lived out his days in the farmhouse, enjoying the smell of wildflowers and the taste of just-made jam.” He closed his eyes against the pain of injustice.
Kate let his statement digest and slowly little snippets of the past began to knit together. “I think …” She cleared her throat. “I think Connor knew about that. I think he found something out. I mean, he … he said something. I don’t … I can’t remember properly. I know that my father was doing something Connor found utterly reprehensible. I know they argued about it. And I know Connor left because of it.”
Benedetto nodded. A week ago, this information would have sent him into atailspin. He would have hit the speed dial button on his phone to speak to his detective in London and get the information he sought. But now?
It was a side plot to the real problems he faced. “Perhaps. Your father’s duplicity was shockingly bold and yet no one ever spoke out against him. I cannot fathom how he ensured that,” Benedetto muttered disapprovingly. “But his skills were evidently beyond compare.”
Kate pressed her head back against the wall and squeezed her eyes shut. Tears dripped down from the corners of each eye. “I am sorry about your father.” The sentence was hollow. “I really am.”
Benedetto crouched onto his knees now, moving closer. “Kate, I have hated your father for a very long time.” Still, he didn’t touch her. He knew she would move away and he couldn’t bear that rejection. “I have hated him in a way that someone like you could never understand. Hatred for him has consumed me.”
She flinched at his words yet she understood them. “And so you used me to get back at him.”
It was such a bare-faced assessment, yet so crudely accurate, that he could only nod.
Her eyes were closed; she didn’t see it.
“Kate,cara, all my dreams came true when I saw you that night.” His throat was thick, his words coated with emotion. “I looked into your eyes and saw him staring back at me. I felt a fierce need to possess you. And to hurt you, yes. God, Kate, when I think back to what I felt and how I wanted … I am appalled.” A muscle jerked in his cheek; his expression was haunted. “I did not know you then. I did not know who you were.”
“Yes you did,” she denied with fierce determination. “You knew I was a person. A woman. A human being. You knew I was someone separate to him. That his acts don’t represent me. And yet still you used me.”
She sucked in a deep, steadying breath. “I can’t believe you took that photo. And do you know what I thought …” Her words were squeezing out of her; they were almost impossible to form. Emotion was sledging across her chest. She squeezed her eyes closed for a moment and then tried again.
“I would never normally let someone photograph me like that. Ever. But you took a photo and I smiled, because I trusted you.” She gripped his face with both hands. “I trusted you. And I don’t trust anyone.” A sob bubbled out of her. She hung her head anddropped her hands. “My father is the worst of men. You’re right. I can’t believe that after the way he raised me I could ever feel for someone what you made me feel. But I did. My God, how stupid I’ve been.”
“Not stupid,” he contradicted, angrier with himself than he’d known he could ever be.
“I fell in love with you, Benedetto. Don’t you get it? I fell in love with you.” She closed her eyes again, her expression anguished. “I fell in love with who I thought you were. Probably the moment we arrived at the farm house. When you took that photo and sent it to my father, I loved you even then.”
“Don’t say that.” His words were a harsh rejection. “You can’t love me.”
“I’ve never known love before,” she said slowly. “So when I felt it, I recognized it instantly for its newness and strangeness.”
She stood slowly. Her body was aching all over, as though she had the flu. “I can’t believe I’ve been such an idiot.”
He watched her for a minute and then pushed to his feet. “I am sorry.”
The words were not ones he used often. “My father killed himself after years of suffering in prison. He turned into a man I barely recognized. And despite the money at my disposal and the power many would consider me to possess, I was unable to help him. I was constrained by the same legal system that had failed him so poorly. I loved him and I let him down.”
She sobbed. “I’m sorry that happened to him. I’m sorry. My father …” The words trailed into nothing.
Benedetto was impatient. “You defended him last night. You told me he is a good man. Why?”
Her eyes sunk to the floor. “Because I didn’t want him to taint what I shared with you.” Her grimace was pathetic; it made him ache to hold her to his chest. “I didn’t want to give him the power of thought nor time. Those memories are in my past. At least, I thought they were.” She rubbed her wrist and now Benedetto’s eyes dropped to it. He saw the dark marks and swore.
“Cara, let me hold you. I know that this is a God awful mess, but in this moment let me be what you need.”
