Unholy Union Page 4

  I think back but can’t remember. Although, there is one detail that had stood out. The sound of wheels on our hardwood floors.

  “Maybe. I didn’t get a chance to see anyone before he—Damian—closed the door.”

  “Well, either way, you’d better forget what you think you know about that night because it doesn’t matter anymore.”

  “Of course, it matters. My father was murdered. They murdered him.”

  He sighs deeply. “Forget anything you remember. For your own sake.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “The Di Santo family, Cristina, they’re not from here. Not from the city, I mean. The main seat of the family is Upstate, but in certain circles throughout North America and Europe, their name commands respect.”

  “I won’t respect—”

  “And instills a certain level of fear.”

  His tone gives me pause.

  “What does that mean?”

  “The car accident that killed your mother and brother, the one where your father was driving, the occupants of the other car were the Di Santo family. They were on their way to Damian’s sister’s wedding.”

  “What?” It’s like he just knocked the wind out of me.

  “Benedict Di Santo, his wife, daughter, and two sons were in the vehicle your father hit. They were a few blocks from the church where Annabel would be wed. Benedict’s wife died on the scene. Damian was scarred, as you saw.”

  “What about the others? The brother and Annabel?”

  “The brother, Lucas, I don’t know about. I know he didn’t die in that accident, but he was badly injured. Annabel was left in a coma. She died almost a full year later. It was the night after her burial that they came to pay that visit to your father.”

  I shudder. “I don’t understand this.”

  He unfolds the sheets of paper and gestures to the one I’m holding. “That’s the original, I guess.” I glance at the one on his desk. A copy of the contract.

  I stare up at my uncle, not believing this. “You knew about this?”

  He doesn’t reply, doesn’t deny it.

  “You’ve known all along they’d come for me? All those flowers, the notes…you knew they were in my house the night my father was murdered.”

  “You lost your brother and your mother. Benedict lost his wife and his daughter. His daughter was three months pregnant at the time.” My hand naturally goes to cover my mouth. “He had a stroke just a few months after the accident. It left him in that wheelchair.”

  “I didn’t know. I never even asked about the other car. The people.”

  “You were young.”

  “I should have asked.”

  He shakes his head. “When his daughter died, Benedict came for you. I think her death was the thing that drove him over the edge of reason. It was you he wanted that night.”

  “Me?” My heart misses a beat and a cold sweat collects under my arms.

  “Your father bought you time.” He gestures to the sheet of paper in my hand.

  Enjoy your last few hours of freedom, Cristina, because come midnight, you belong to me.

  “They can’t enforce this. Surely…”

  I look up at my uncle. What I see in his eyes, it terrifies me, because I see that yes, they can. But there’s more.

  “You’ve known about this all the time I’ve lived here.”

  “There was nothing I could do.”

  “You’ve known they killed your brother.”

  Something in his eyes makes me uneasy. It takes me a moment to figure out what it is. They’re devoid of emotion.

  “Did you know that by the time your father died, he’d gotten himself into some trouble?” he asks.

  “What kind of trouble?”

  “Some of his investments didn’t pan out.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?”

  “He lost a lot of money. Lost us a lot of money. Almost lost the house on Staten Island. And to save the foundation, he did some things I wasn’t quite comfortable with.”

  The Valentina Foundation is my family’s foundation. It’s a charitable organization responsible for many programs in the city and beyond. Politicians praise it, and I still remember the connections my dad had. Even as a child, I knew it was a big deal. And as far as money, we always had it. It’s how I grew up both at home and here with my uncle. Old money. We had a comfortable life. It was normal for me.

  “That’s what…” He pauses, shakes his head and drinks his whiskey, then pours another. “As your godfather, it was natural that I’d become your guardian. And I’ve raised you well. You never lacked for anything.”

  I don’t have a chance to tell him it’s not all about what you have before he continues.

  “Your father’s decisions left us all vulnerable. Left me and my family exposed to some very bad people. Between that and my divorce, well…” He draws a deep breath. “I did what I had to do.”

  Dread creeps up into my throat, making it hard to swallow. “What was that?” I croak.

  “I couldn’t lose my kids.”

  I remember the bitter divorce, remember my aunt’s surprise and despair when my uncle was awarded sole custody of Liam and Simona in an abrupt change of events. And I begin to put two and two together.

  “What did you do to keep them?”

  He takes a long time to say anything, but he doesn’t quite answer me. “All of this, everything, it was all to ensure you grew up well.”

  “What?”

  “To ensure you studied and had nice things and lived comfortably.”

  “I don’t understand. The money…it came from my dad.”

  “Your dad dealt with some very dangerous men, Cristina. As dangerous as the Di Santo family. I hope you understand I had no choice—”

  “But I don’t understand.” He sacrificed me? “You redid the apartment for me? You bought the best furniture and clothes for me? Or was it for you?”

  He exhales an audible breath.

  “I never cared about any of that. I’d lost my family. All of them. You were all I had left. You and Liam and Simona. That’s what I cared about.”

  “It wasn’t like that.”

  “What was it like?”

  “I’d have lost even the apartment we live in.”

  “So, you let them buy you?”

  He has the decency to lower his gaze, at least momentarily. “I can’t stop this, Cristina.”

  I shake my head. “What do you mean?” I stand, setting the ridiculous contract on his desk. “There’s an inheritance. We won’t need Di Santo money if that’s what this is still about. When I turn eighteen, the foundation and—”

  “The foundation is a front.”

  “What?”

  He shifts his gaze. “Your father’s dealings weren’t always on the up-and-up. The men he took donations from had their own agendas.”

  “What does that mean?”

  “It was legitimate once, back when our grandfather was alive. Funding good causes, doing good things.”

  “We still do.”

  “Over the last years of your father’s life, it evolved. Became a tool for some very powerful, very bad men.” He drinks more whiskey, then takes a deep breath in. “Damian Di Santo took over management of the foundation after your father’s death.”

  “That’s not true. It can’t be. It was you and Mr. Maher.” Mr. Maher is our family attorney. “That’s how the will reads. You’d manage it on my behalf until I turned eighteen.”

  He shakes his head. “I’m telling you he managed it.”

  “So you let him take over the foundation? Let him corrupt it?”

  “Your father had already corrupted it,” he snaps, then runs a hand through his hair and won’t look at me. “Shit.” He drinks some more. “You’re young. Naïve. I don’t expect you to understand but it came to a point where it was dangerous for me, for my family.”

  Why am I feeling like he’s hiding behind this? Like this is a cop-out?

/>   He shakes his head, takes a deep breath in.

  I can’t belong to Damian Di Santo. That doesn’t make any sense.

  “You can’t let them take me. You can’t—”

  “They took Simona this afternoon.”

  His words stop me dead.

  “Just took her right from school. Damian’s sister, Michela, picked her up and apparently took her out for ice cream. Took her somewhere to play with her son. Eventually, though, she got scared, and they brought her home. And I think that’s exactly what they wanted.”

  “My God.” That’s why she’d been crying. “She must have been terrified. She’s just a little girl.” I remember the night I heard my father say those same words to the stranger in the study. Damian’s father, I guess. “Did they hurt her?”

  “No. That wasn’t the plan. It was to show us the extent of their power. Their reach. The Di Santo family has always been untouchable, Cristina. There was a decline after the accident. Then Benedict had that stroke and I thought that would be that, that it was over. But Damian, he’s taken the reins, and they are more powerful than ever. I guess Damian is carrying out his father’s vendetta. Or maybe it’s his own vendetta. He lost his family too, after all.”

  “And they want me as part of that vendetta?”

  He nods.

  “To do what to me?”

  His face pales a little, and then he pours the last of the whiskey down his throat.

  I don’t think I want to know the answer to that question.

  2

  Damian

  Michela is blowing cigarette smoke out the window of the SUV.

  “I told you I don’t want you smoking in my car or anywhere near me.” I take what’s left of the cigarette and toss it out the window. “It’s a disgusting habit.”

  She looks at me with contempt in her eyes. I’m used to it, though, from her. And I don’t blame her. She has every right to hate me.

  “You shouldn’t have involved the little girl.”

  “That wasn’t your call to make.”

  The driver pulls the car onto the road, merging with traffic. I type out a message to Tobias.

  Me: Is a man in place for when she tries to run?

  Tobias: Two at the front and two at the back of the building.

  Me: Good. Make sure they don’t intercept her, but don’t lose her either.

  Tobias: They know what they’re doing.

  Me: Just make sure.

  Satisfied, I tuck my phone into the pocket of my jacket and turn to Michela. She’s older than me by three years and we’ve never been particularly close. From the day my twin brother, Lucas, and I came home, she chose him. It’s strange, but she became his protector, and for some reason, that left only scorn for me.

  With Michela, it’s always black or white. There’s no room for gray with her.

  And like she did with Lucas, when our parents brought Annabel home, I became her protector. Annabel was the baby of the family. Two years younger than me, she even managed to make our father smile.

  Until the accident in the solarium, at least. He didn’t look at her with much else than pity after that.

  She was six and I was eight. We were playing in the solarium, a place we’d played a hundred times, when she took a bad fall. She wasn’t quite the same after that, not mentally or physically. But maybe the former is how she managed to hold on to that joy only children have.

  I don’t like to think about what he said about Michela when Annabel died. And even given her contempt for me, I don’t want Michela to ever find out.

  Not that she’d be surprised.

  “How was Bennie with her?” Bennie, short for Benedict—named after my father—is Michela’s son. My nephew is five years old, and the best thing to happen to the Di Santo family in a very long time.

  “Sweet. And she was sweet to him.” She shakes her head. “It was wrong, Damian. You have to know that.”

  The thing is, I do. “Sometimes, we have to do things we don’t like or agree with for the good of the family.”

  “You sound more and more like him every day, you know that?”

  She means our father.

  I turn away and take a deep breath as we head out of the city and toward the hotel where Michela has been staying.

  She places her hand over mine. “You don’t have to be, Damian.”

  I look down at her hand, at the strangeness of it. A gentle touch. A caring one?

  No, I won’t be fooled by that.

  “And what is the alternative?” I ask, pulling away.

  She draws back. She’s scared of me. To her, I’m a monster. And I deserve her hate for what I did to her. I no longer say what I was made to do. No, I own it now. It’s a part of the transition, this metamorphosis from human to monster. Owning the shit you do to others.

  “Do you like how you live, Michela?”

  Her jaw tightens.

  “Do you like that Bennie isn’t hungry or cold at night? Isn’t on the street begging with his mother?” Not that I’d ever let my nephew suffer like that now that I know of his existence.

  “Don’t.”

  “Do you like having a roof over your head? A very comfortable one at that.”

  “Stop.”

  “Do you like money? Unlimited amounts of it to pay for your closet full of designer clothes, shoes, bags—”

  “I paid dearly for all of it. You know that better than anyone. Or don’t you remember?”

  Now it’s my turn to grit my teeth. I remember. How could I forget the horror of what I did?

  I force back any emotion that tries to make its way into my heart. I lock it all back up nice and tight in its box of unpleasant but necessary evils and bury it so deep, I hope to never see it again.

  “I remember well, Sister. And I thought you’d have learned your lesson. I hoped you wouldn’t need another.”

  That quiets her.

  I draw a breath, exhale, and repeat until I’m calm. “How’s our brother?” I ask her casually, shifting my gaze out the front window.

  “How would I know? Smartest thing he did was getting the hell away from this fucked-up family.”

  “Does it hurt knowing he isn’t there for you? Knowing he abandoned you?”

  “He didn’t abandon me. He saved himself. I love him enough to wish happiness for him wherever he is.”

  I cock my head to the side, studying her. “Why do you stay, Michela, if you hate the family so much? Why do you raise your son by my rules?”

  “You mean Father’s rules.”

  “I mean exactly what I said.”

  A sly smile stretches her lips. She knows this particular button to push. “You just keep telling yourself that. And I’m not too proud to say that if I had any choice, I wouldn’t stay. I would never have returned. But our father made sure I had no choices, didn’t he?”

  “He wants his grandson near.”

  “Not out of any affection for either of us. Tell me something, is it only a matter of time before he forces Lucas back? He is the firstborn, Damian. If he returns, doesn’t that weaken your position?”

  Another button. But I don’t let it show. I don’t let anything show.

  “He’s firstborn by one minute.” We were delivered by C-section but technically, Lucas came first.

  “Still.”

  “And besides, I am the Di Santo family now. No one, and that means not my father or my brother, and certainly not you, can change that.”

  “See, that’s the thing, and I think it kills you. Lucas doesn’t want it. But if he did, Father would give it to him in a heartbeat. He’d hand it all over, all your hard work wrapped up nice and pretty just for him.”

  “Our father isn’t up to the task, is he?” He’s deteriorated over the last eight years to the point I wonder how he’s held on at all.

  “All of it taken from you,” she says, ignoring me and snapping her fingers. “Just like that.”

  I study her as the car pulls into the circular entrance of the
exclusive property. “Perhaps we should have a repeat of that lesson after all, Sis.”

  That shuts her up.

  I watch as the blood drains from her face.

  The driver opens her door, but she doesn’t move. She opens her mouth to say something, but I don’t want to hear any more from her.

  “Good night, Michela,” I say, turning away. Dismissing her.

  3

  Cristina

  I pack a bag, just a few things. Some clothes, a journal, my laptop, and a few schoolbooks although I’m not sure I’ll be returning to school.

  All that talk of the foundation, about my father’s associates, I can’t really process it. I hadn’t really given much thought to it or my inheritance of it. I just figured my uncle would continue to manage it in my name.

  I take Sofia, my now ratty rabbit, and put her in the middle of my bed as I write a note to Simona. She’s barely six. How could they take her like that? I can only imagine how scared she must have been.

  Liam told me what had happened. How they’d lured my cousin to them, how they’d used Michela’s son to help.

  Dear Simona,

  I have to go on an unexpected trip, and I’ll probably be gone by the time you wake up. I’m sorry I won’t get to say goodbye, but I was hoping you could take care of Sofia for me while I’m away. You’re always so good with her, and she loves you so much.

  I will be back to visit you as soon as I can.

  Love,

  Cristina

  I tuck the note into Sofia’s little furry arms, then go to my closet. Kneeling, I move the boxes of shoes off the one I want, not letting myself pause for too long on the one where I hid the ribbons and notes all these years. I wish I’d never kept them now. Wish I could burn them.

  I stop at the last box. It’s for a pair of kid’s shoes. Shoes that belonged to my brother.

  Pulling it out, I sit with it on my lap and trace the faded design on the lid. The little smiling bear is walking in his brand-new sneakers while carrying what was once a bright red balloon. Scott and I each had a pair. I don’t even know what it was about them that we loved, but I remember how happy we were to get them.