I woke confused. The last thing I remember was being yanked from the edge of the tracks. I was in a big bed. I pulled myself up onto my elbows and glanced around with blurry eyes.
The room was glowing orange, lit by a dying blaze in a giant fireplace I could stand up in. The room contained velvet upholstered chairs, gorgeous oil paintings, and a goon asleep on a folding chair in the corner. He was snoring.
Then I noticed my clothes were on a chair beside the bed. I glanced down. I was wearing a silky nightgown.
It all came back to me and I was horrified. I’d tried to sleep with my own father. No wonder he had reacted so violently when I kissed him. I felt sick. Not only was he my father, but he was also the person who raped and killed my mother. I leaned over and dry heaved over the side of the bed. I had nothing left in me.
I clutched for my clothes and drew them to my chest. My jacket crackled. The letters were still inside.
Reaching into my jacket pocket and keeping my eye on the man in the corner, I painstakingly withdrew the letters, slowly, slowly so they didn’t make any noise. There was still one envelope I hadn’t opened. I looked at it carefully. It had never been opened. The postal mark was after my mother’s death.
Heart pounding, without taking my eyes off the gorilla in the corner, I quietly slit open the envelope with a fingernail. It was from a DNA service. It had my name on it. My mother must have snuck something from me to garner my DNA.
I knew it was a fairly new capacity – to be able to check someone’s DNA instead of doing a paternity test. I wondered why she had never done a paternity test with my father. Then I realized. My father—the man who raised me and the man I loved more than any other man in the world—hadn’t known. He’d always assumed I was his daughter.
My heart broke for her right then. What a horrid secret to keep.
With shaking fingers, I read on.
It had my father’s name on it: Lorenzo Santella. 99 percent likelihood.
I sagged with relief and tears spurted out of my eyes. Turricci was not my father.
But the letter had been dated after my mother’s death. She had never known. She had died before learning I wasn’t Turricci’s daughter.
As my heart rate slowed, all the puzzle pieces clicked into place. It all made sense, now. My entire life made sense.
No wonder my mother loved Christopher. He was her love child with my father – or the man I believed was my father. The love of her life.
Me? My whole life my mother had believed that I was the product of a rape. A rape by this man, Turricci. A killer. A monster. A man my mother loathed. When she looked at me, she must have seen the man she hated. But she still loved me. I knew she loved me. Not as much as she loved, Christopher, though.
If she had lived, she would’ve known I wasn’t Turricci’s daughter. But she would never know now. This man, Turricci, had cheated me out of the true love my mother should have had for me. Hatred surged through me. I crumpled the papers loudly in my fist.
The man across the room startled awake and I quickly shoved the papers back in my jacket pocket.
He acknowledged me with a grunt and then leaned over and knocked on the door.
A few minutes later, Turricci walked in. He met my eyes and nodded.
“You know now, don’t you?”
I didn’t answer.
“I wanted so much to tell you in Sicily, but you left. I wanted to explain why I couldn’t make love to you. Why my love for you is infinitely deeper than a love a man has for a woman.”
He leaned down and kissed my brow. I struggled to get away from him and tried to spit in his face, but it only came straight back down and dribbled down my chin.
He patiently took out a silk handkerchief and gently wiped my face. I started swinging and connected once with his jaw before I was pushed back into the pillow from a hand that came out of nowhere.
The gorilla was holding me down. Turricci didn’t react.
“When you walked into my hotel, I knew who you were immediately. I’ve kept tabs on you since I found out that you were mine.”
I glared.
“Your brother was the one who contacted me. He let me know that you were my daughter.”
“What?” I had vowed not to talk, but this news startled me.
“He found your birth certificate. He sent me a copy.”
Anger flared through me.
“Is that why you killed Christopher?”
“No. I didn’t kill your brother. Only your mother.”
His words sent me thrashing toward him, wind milling my arms at him, teeth bared, fingernails at the ready, swearing at him, ready to tear his throat open. But the goon flattened me back on the pillow with one beefy arm. A screaming pain shot up from my leg like an electrical jolt and had me gasping. I realized then how hurt I was. I glanced down and saw a thick bandage around my thigh. Someone had given me medical care, but the pain was still intense.
I closed my eyes.
This man before me killed my mother and father. I would not rest until I had avenged them. I needed to make a plan. I needed to escape so I could kill this man before me.
But Turricci was not done talking.
“When your mother left me brokenhearted in Sicily, I thought my life was over. I believed that without her love I was doomed to be alone. So, I plotted. I made plans to win her back. I wrote her and begged her and offered her, not only my heart, but all my earthly belongings.”
He closed his eyes for a second.
“But she didn’t want me.”
Slowly, my love for her grew into hate. I had never hated anything or anyone as desperately as I hated your mother. I hated your father, too. But he was just a pawn. It was your mother who ruined my life.
I prayed every day that my hatred would lessen.
I thought I had accepted your mother’s betrayal. But then I made the mistake of going to Geneva during the fete season and saw your parents.
They were dancing in a corner at the gala and when I saw the way your mother looked at your father I knew that my hatred would never dissipate until your mother was dead.
He paused and I stared at him. “Why did you try to cover it up?”
“I didn’t. Not at first. The fire was an unfortunate result of my cigarette. But then I got the letter from Christopher. It came the next day, before he knew about the fire. It was then that I knew I had to cover up the murders. I knew that I needed to make sure suspicion never fell on me because if it did you would never accept me as your father.”
I narrowed my eyes at him. My fists clenched at my sides. If I had a knife I would leap out of bed and stab him right in the jugular.
He had killed everyone I cared about.
“Why did you kill Ethel?”
He tilted his head and frowned.
“The homeless lady? The one who lived outside my building in the Tenderloin. You know the one you burned down?”
He shook his head. “My men started the fire, yes, but I don’t know this Ethel you speak of.”
Liar. I scowled.
“Why did you kill Vito?”
He sighed and nodded. “Yes, the old man’s blood is on my hands. But it is entirely his fault. He didn’t need to get involved. You see, he had complicated things. Vito, your mother’s precious friend, had run your father’s company into the ground with his gambling debts. It was not my problem. Until he suspected I was behind the murders. Then he tried to blackmail me. He wanted me to pay an exorbitant sum for a mediocre development in San Francisco. He was a fool. He’d been gone from the old country so long that he’d forgotten who he was dealing with. He was so Americanized. He had grown soft. You don’t blackmail Mateo Turricci. What a fool.”
“He was a good man.” I said, glowering.
Turricci shrugged. “He wasn’t as foolish as I thought. He’d actually drawn up a will leaving everything to you right before he died. I think he wanted the money so you would be provided for since he had squandered your inheritance. I think he may have been trying to put things right.”
I swallowed the lump that had risen to my throat, remembering the look in Vito’s eyes as I pressed a blade against his fleshy neck. He died thinking I hated him.
Because of this fucker.
“I hate you.” I spit the words out.
Turricci sighed.
“You do now. But that will change. You are my flesh and blood and nothing can change that.” His gaze was piercing.
Something could change that. A nice crisp piece of paper in my jacket. But I was biding my time. I’d eyed the fireplace poker and was calculating how quickly I could get to it and if I could beat the goon to get to Turricci.
“One of my greatest fears has been to die alone,” he said. “I could have the most beautiful woman in the world as my wife, but I would always question whether she was with me for my money. But when you have la famiglia. When you have children. They are there for love and honor. L'affetto verso i genitori e fondamento di ogni virtu.”
I rolled my eyes. He was spouting Italian proverbs about children being there for their parents. He continued.
“Now, I’ve connected with my own flesh and blood, my own child. I will not die alone. Il sangue non è acqua.” Blood is thicker than water.
With those words, I knew I had one last card to play and that I better play it fast.