“When we received word from another operative stationed in her area that she’d broken her oath and married the man, even bearing his child…”
He breaks eye contact with me, working his jaw. I narrow my eyes at him. Did he feel something for my mother beyond a duty to the same organization? Or maybe he’s still furious she betrayed them all? He said she knew more than anyone that entering into a relationship was against the rules… perhaps he was the reason why. Perhaps he outed her before.
Perhaps she’s the reason he took the oath in the first place.
“I don’t understand,” I cut in. “You say there’s no fraternizing, yet Cec is your son and Bes your nephew. How are they here if no rules were broken?”
Ansaldo flinches.I wonder why.“There are a few blessed unions between ancient families of the order who are allowed to marry and procreate. My family is one of them, and so is yours.”
Perhapsthat’swhy he’s angry about my mother: she was originally intended for him. I move on from it swiftly, though. I don’t care about Ansaldo’s love life and I want to hear the rest of my mother’s story.
I gesture for him to continue.
He obliges. “We sent a team to extract her, hoping she’d come peacefully. Instead, she killed all but one of the five Valtivar, fleeing before the last one could take her.”
I see it in my mind’s eye: my mother struggling in the iron grasps of the Valtivars who’d once been her colleagues. Maybe even her friends. The very same people she trusted with her life, had now come to rip her away from her family. From her husband and child. There’s no telling what a person might do in that situation, even if that makes them a killer.
What I don’t want to admit to myself is that she probably killed dozens of people while in the employ of the order, and four more before…
“My mother passed when I was only a baby. If she escaped, how did she…?”
Die.But I don’t want to say the word aloud.
Ansaldo clenches his hands before speaking, and I already know I’m not going to like the next words out of his mouth.
“To get away from those she marked as her enemies—”
I interrupt him, my anger rising and crashing inside me like a tidal wave. “They made themselves her enemies.”
Ansaldo shifts uncomfortably. Good.The order may have seen it as an extraction mission, but my mother saw it as an assault on her family.
The Fiore’s are fierce, Nonna likes to remind me.We can be reasonable. But come between us and the people we love? There’s no telling what we’ll do.
“Your mother ran down the road, screaming for help. But she slipped on some ice and…”
He trails off.
I look away and take a stuttered breath.Killed by ice? Goddamnice!No wonder Nonna never likes to talk about my mother’s death. What an awful way to go.
Even if it was technically the ice that took her life, it was the order who drove her to that moment. And, assuming Ansaldo is telling the truth, a freak accident doesn’t absolve them of the crime.
“When the last surviving Valtivar returned without your mother, we knew she was dead. Lucia broke her Themis oath that very night by having her tattoo and the skin around it removed, with no notice or indication of where she was heading. Though we could guess. She hadn’t met your father, and knowing she had a grandchild out in the world, I’m certain she felt a great need to be with you and raise you in your mother’s place.”
“I’m shocked the order allowed her to leave,” I say, hating how small my voice sounds. Nonna was willing to have her skin ripped off to escape the order? That doesn’t leave the best taste in my mouth.
“Yes, well, she’d taken her blood oath,” he replies pointedly. “Thatoath can’t be undone. We knew we could trust her to keep our secret.”
Bes moves in behind me, placing a hand on the chair, fingers brushing my shoulder. Hurrying swiftly past the ache squeezing my chest at my nonna’s sacrifice, I consider my words carefully before speaking them aloud.
“As disturbing as all this is, it doesn’t explain why my nonna has recently been in contact with you. If she truly left and never looked back, then why do Bes and Cec know about her?”
Ansaldo’s gaze wanders from mine, bouncing between the two young men.
“I have no idea what they told you, but Lucia has always remained a personal friend of mine, given the long-standing connection between our families.”
I shake my head. “I don’t believe you.”
He watches me in that analytical way of his, not giving anything away.
