She huffs out a breath. “Since when do you talk like that?” Licking her dry lips, she continues, “Your father isn’t exactly known for his kindness, Cecilia. And my fucking him had nothing to do with love either. I had a job to do.”
“You were his handler,” I say.
She nods. “The feds wanted him dead. They came to The Hive and hired me as a honeypot. But killing someone at his level isn’t simple. I had to infiltrate his life. Get him to trust me. That…took time. And then, one day, I found out I was pregnant. I don’t even know how it happened…”
“So it was you, then? You killed my mother so you could raise your son at thepalazzo?”
A subtle smirk appears on her face as she begins to shiver. She closes her eyes, remaining silent.
Mikhail pulls on her hair, hard enough that she winces. “Keep talking. Unless you want your other eight fingers chopped.”
“It wasn’t me who stabbed her,” she says. “At least, not at first…”
My breath stops. “What…?”
“After finding out I got pregnant, the Matron wanted me dead. She organized that car accident, but, obviously, I didn’t die. I knew she wouldn’t stop coming after me, so I went to her, and we made a deal. She’d raise my son as her own, and I’d help him get into thepalazzowhen the time came. She’d have directinfluence over the biggest Italian crime family in the country. It was the only way I could convince her to keep him alive.”
“So you’re saying the Matron raised Remus? I thought you gave him away to a family of farmers. Which is it, Lucia?” Mikhail asks.
“Both,” she says a bit sourly. “I gave him away, and the Matron took over. She visited him regularly. Made the boy think she was related to the farmers.”
“Christ. And what does Cecilia’s mother have to do with this?” Mikhail asks.
“What do you think? I couldn’t waltz in there when she was still Antonio’s wife. He would’ve killed me and taken my son. I needed to get rid of her and then make Antonio fall in love with me. But the fucker loved her too much for his own good.”
Sure he did…
If he loved her, he wouldn’t have cheated. This entire mess could’ve been avoided.
“I fed her ricin powder.” She smiles. “A deadly poison that makes the autopsy look as if her internal organs bled out. Problem was…it can take up to three days. The Matron was losing patience, so she got one of Antonio’s guards to stab your mother while she slept. Every powerful man has traitors around him.”
I step back, my body colliding with the sedan my mentor was leaning on, my eyes snapping to my husband’s.
“Whoever he is, he's a dead man,” he says. “I’ll make sure of it.”
“Your mother fought back,cara,” Lucia adds. “She almost ruined things for everyone. Until I came in—I was in thepalazzothat night, putting you to sleep. I heard something break in her bedroom, and I found her with the guard. She had a wound to the chest, but it wasn’t deep enough to kill her. I had to finish the job.”
I slide down the car until I’m on the ground.
“I stabbed her right in the heart while she begged me to help her. I’d never seen your mother so helpless. And it felt…ah, it felt good, Cecilia…”
“Stop talking,” I murmur.
“Seeing the blood gurgling out of her made me realize I should’ve dealt with her this way from the very beginning. It meant I could live, that my son could be with me as his mother. We’d inherit everything we should’ve inherited from the start. The only problem was that now, the murder was too obvious. I had to think of something fast, before your father saw the mess.”
“You killed her…”
“No, you did,” she says, chuckling with her eyes closed. “You believed it. Your father believed it. I got so lucky with your head injury. It was easy to frame you for everything.”
“F-Fuck you.” I run my hands through my hair, breathing fast and shallow.
Images of what she just described flash through my head, twisting my stomach and making my chest ache. I had meals with this woman, shared some of my most personal thoughts with her, clung to her like she was my savior…
“W-why keep me small?” I ask. “Why string me along all those years, telling me I wasn’t ready to become someone? For how long were you going to keep me a prisoner to your manipulation?”
“For as long as it was necessary so you wouldn’t remember. Though, in the end, it never even mattered. Your father never recovered after your mother died. I stuck around, hoping I could help him process his feelings…” She rolls her eyes. “But like I said, the man loved his wife too much for his own good. I had to switch plans, which is why I finally made contact with my son, consequences be damned.”
“And then you found someone curious enough about your past,” she adds, glancing at my husband, but he says nothing. He’s letting me handle this myself. He knows I need it.
