I don’t press him for details about money. We have far more important things to discuss.
Chapter 51
I wasn't ready for that
Luca
Marco brings the glass to his lips again. He’s going to need a refill soon already. “Lil came home that first day of kindergarten and told us a boy pulled her hair, then she said, ‘But don’t worry, a girl punched him right in the face, and now Ariana’s my best friend forever.’ I immediately called the principal to ensure they didn’t punish this little girl who stood up for my daughter. He wasn’t happy about it, but he also wasn’t stupid. I dropped Lil off the next day so I could say thank you to her new best friend.” He pauses, raking his hand over his face.
I take a drink of my whiskey because he’s right. I’m going to need it.
“Lil dragged me over to Ariana. She was skin and bones. Her clothes and hair were dirty. She had dark circles under her eyes, like she didn’t sleep enough. Her arms were covered in bruises that were clearly made by fingers. I thanked her for helping Lil, told her she was brave. And she said, ‘Meanies shouldn’t win, Mr. Lil’s Dad.’ With this fucking sadness in her eyes that no five-year-old should know.”
Another sip of whiskey passes my lips. One drink won’t be enough for either of us.
“I looked into her parents as soon as I left the school. Both had multiple arrests. Her father had assault charges. Someone was supposed to be stopping by to make sure the house was safe for Ariana, but they obviously weren’t. I went to offer them help and tell them to clean their shit up. Figured dropping my name would be enough to scare them. It usually is. I knocked on the door, and Ari answered it. She was there alone. Had been for two days. She walked herself to and from the fucking bus stop and left the door unlocked because she didn’t have a key.”
I close my eyes and put my hand on my chest because my heart hurts for the little girl that Ariana was.
“The house was filthy. There was a box of stale crackers and an almost empty jar of peanut butter. I said fuck this, left them a note, and brought her home. Mia gave her a bath. Said there were more bruises under those dirty clothes. Ari ate so much she almost threw up and basically glued herself to anyone’s side she could. Mostly Lil, but she never wanted to stay in a room by herself back then. We set her up on a trundle bed in Lil’s room, and they fell asleep holding pinkies.”
Marco looks up from his glass. “It took them five days to call me. Said we should just keep her, they never wanted her in the first place. They didn’t even want to deal with a legal adoption. Told me to forge the paperwork so they could be done with her faster, and for a million dollars they would disappear completely.”
We’re both out of whiskey. Marco grabs the bottle and pours us more. “When the girls were eight, Mia took them to the park all the time. One day after they got home, Ariana told me, ‘Daddy, my neck got cold. Like when Lil touches it with an ice cube and it makes me giggle, but this made me scared instead.’ We didn’t think much of it until a fewdays later.”
He pauses and takes in a ragged breath before continuing. “We got a letter in the mail demanding more money, along with a picture of Ari at the park. I put a security team on her. On them. But we still received more pictures, and Ariana told me she got the ice neck feeling almost every day. It was stressing her out. She didn’t know about the pictures, but she could barely sleep. We tried to track them down, but they were printing the pictures themselves and mailing the letters from different locations. I paid them again in the hopes they would leave her the hell alone.”
He’s pacing now, sipping on the whiskey. “It worked for two years. Then more ice neck, more pictures, more money. Then nothing again for three years.” He closes his eyes and draws in another deep, uneven breath. My heart is pounding in my chest.
“When the girls were thirteen, it started again. But Ari was old enough then to know something was up. She was pissed that the ice neck feeling was back, pissed when she saw photos of herself shopping, at school, at a restaurant…” He purses his lips and lifts an eyebrow. “She and Lil had gotten nosy and searched my office.”
I chuckle, unable to stop myself. “Fucking hell, the balls on those two.” I shake my head and drink my whiskey.
“No shit. But they found the photos, and put it all together. Demanded we tell them, and this is a direct quote from Ari, ‘What the mother fucking hell is going the fuck on with this bullshit.’”
I choke on my whiskey, somehow smiling in the middle of a story that’s going to get worse. Coughing to clear my throat, I say, “I have to know what Lil said because there’s no way she didn’t put her two cents in.”
“She said, ‘Yeah, fucking shit hell god damn, Dad.’”
“That doesn’t even make sense.” I scratch the stubble on my chin inconfusion.
“No, it does not. But we told them the truth. Ari… god, she was pissed. Pissed we gave them any money, but especially more after the original agreement. Her birth mother had overdosed a few years before, so this was all her birth father. Ari said I should just find the asshole and take him to the shed. Which was my plan, obviously. But there was no trace of him. We all fought about giving him more money for days, even as more pictures came and the letters got angrier.”
He stops pacing in front of a window. For a minute, he stares through the glass. He takes a few deep breaths like he’s trying to calm himself. Trying to work himself up to saying whatever comes next. Dread washes over me.
“I fucked up, not just paying him off or locking her in the house until we found him. Then, Ariana disappeared from school. I’m still not sure how it happened. She went into the bathroom at lunch, and then she was gone. Her necklace was broken and left in the grass, and her phone was smashed on the road. There was nothing to track. I started getting texts from a burner phone, threatening to kill her if I didn’t get him the money. Then he sent pictures. She looked so fucking scared. Her clothes were bloody. Each picture was worse than the last. We were racing to get the money together as fast as possible so he would tell me where the fuck she was. And he finally did, but told me I would get there too late.”
I’ve never seen Marco cry. Never thought I would. But he’s fighting back tears right now. I lost my battle back when he said she was taken. He pours more whiskey into our glasses even though they aren’t empty, like he just needs something to do with his hands, before walking back to the window.
“She was covered in blood from the knife wounds. I knew she’d already lost too much. Knew he was right and I was too late.” His voice is eerily low. “I grabbed her and held her in the carwhile Ford drove to the hospital, and I could feel her dying. Her skin was so pale. She could hardly breathe.”
Turning away from the window, he moves toward his desk. “And the whole time, she’s whispering. ‘Don’t let Lil fall apart, Daddy. Give Mama hugs for me every day. Tell Becca thank you for baking with me and Ford for all the piggyback rides. I love you, Daddy. All of you.’ And I’m telling her she’ll be fine and feeling like an asshole because I know I’m lying to my little girl. Just before we turned into the hospital parking lot, she said, ‘Thank you for being my daddy.’ And she died, Luca. She stopped breathing, her heart stopped beating, and she died in my arms in that fucking car.”
I close my eyes. I know she’s here in this house. I know she’s alive. But fuck. Tears stream down my face.
Macro lets out a long, shaky breath and drops into his chair. “We got lucky. Any longer… she would be gone. They were able to get her heart started again, get her breathing again, get her into surgery. She flatlined three times on that table. It took multiple blood transfusions. Every man on my crew came in to donate, some of their wives and even a couple of their moms. She’s covered in scars, and she’s very careful about what she wears, even athome.”
Every swimsuit I’ve seen her in has been a one-piece, and nothing’s been low-cut. Even the tank tops she wears to bed. I didn’t think about it until now.
