Total pages in book: 139
Estimated words: 142640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 475(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 142640 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 713(@200wpm)___ 571(@250wpm)___ 475(@300wpm)
I stare at it and smile, he looks naughty…and familiar. I must have seen a previous photograph of him or something.
“What are you smiling at?” Giuliano asks.
“Is this your mom’s brother?”
“Who?” He takes the photo from me and then his face falls as he stares at it.
“What?”
“This isn’t my uncle.” His haunted eyes rise to meet mine. “This is Luciano Lombardi.”
My eyes widen.
Fuck.
22
Francesca
Giuliano sits back onto his knees as he stares at the image in his hand.
Why would a photo of a young Luciano Lombardi be in his mother’s attic?
Unless….
He stays silent and so do I, because holy crap, we both know that this means that the Lombardi story could actually be true.
Shit.
He throws the stack of photos onto the pile, stands and rushes from the attic, I hear the panic in his footsteps as he takes the stairs two at a time.
With my heart racing, I pick up the photographs and flick through them again. I get to another photo, it’s of Luciano and Giuliano senior, they are both dressed in suits and are standing with another two men that I haven’t seen before.
“Angelina…what did you do?” I whisper angrily. “What did you fucking do?”
“Francesca,” Giuliano calls in a rush. “We’re leaving.”
I screw up my face, huh?
I want him to face this fear head on, running home isn’t going to change it.
“What do you mean?” I call back.
“I said. We’re leaving,” he demands.
I walk to the top of the stairs and look down at him as he stands at the bottom. “I thought we were staying here tonight.”
“No.” He puts his hands on his hips, annoyed by me questioning him. “Change of plans, I want to go home. Now.”
“I want to sort the photos out.” I gesture upstairs. “We can’t leave them like this.”
“I’ll tell you how to sort those photos,” he yells. “Pour petrol over the top and burn the motherfuckers. Get in the car,” he barks before marching out the front door, it slams shut behind him with a loud bang.
What the hell?
Is he even getting our overnight bags from the bedroom?
This is all such a mess.
I look over to the photos strewn all over the floor, I can’t leave them like this and I’m not just throwing everything back into the boxes and wasting the two hours of sorting that we’ve just done. I kneel down onto the floor and begin to put the piles of photos into large manila envelopes.
As I scramble to restore some sort of order I hear the front door bang open downstairs and Giuliano come barreling up the stairs. “I said now!” he growls.
I look up, shocked by his venom and to be honest, a little pissed. “Have some patience Giuliano,” I snap. “Like I already told you, I’m putting these photographs away before I go anywhere. You do not snap your fingers and expect me to jump.”
His eyes bulge from their sockets. “Now!” he yells, he marches over and grabs my hand and pulls me to my feet. “We need to get out of here, right fucking now.” He pulls me out of the room and down the stairs and out the front door, he slams it shut behind us and hurries me to his car and he opens the door in a rush. “Get in.”
I raise my eyebrow, unimpressed with his dramatics.
“Now!” The veins are sticking out of his forehead and he looks like he’s about to explode.
I fall into the car, exasperated. In this instance, I’ll humor him, I’m quite sure that he’s having some kind of mental breakdown of some sort right now.
He gets into the car and slams the door hard, he takes off at one hundred miles per hour and the tires screech in disapproval. I grip the dashboard. “What are you doing, you maniac? Slow down.”
He glares through the windshield as his eyes stay fixed on the road. He changes the gears at speed.
My eyes flick between him and the road as it comes barreling toward us. “It’s okay.”
He punches the steering wheel with force causing me to jump. “Nothing about this is fucking okay, Francesca!” he yells as he loses all control. “I am the child of a mistress and her affair with her bodyguard. I’m the result of a montage of lie after lie, I have no identity at all.” His eyes well with tears as he grips the steering wheel at white-knuckle force.
Oh….
I watch him, unsure what to say. “We don’t know that,” I whisper softly.
“Don’t we?” he screams like a madman. “What the fuck was that photo?” He punches the steering wheel again as he takes a corner at speed.
I grip the dash to hold on. “Will you slow down?” I cry. “Killing us is not going to make this situation better.”
He clenches his jaw and with a defiant tilt of his chin a cold demeanor falls over him as if having an epiphany. “But I know what will,” he mutters.