Total pages in book: 105
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 103124 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 516(@200wpm)___ 412(@250wpm)___ 344(@300wpm)
“As it does you,” I say.
He gestures toward a chair. “Please, sit. Tell me how you are. Are you happy?”
I look at him like he’s just spoken to me in Klingon and realize just how much my father has changed.
I don’t think he has ever asked me if I’m happy.
Or to tell him how I am.
I relax into my chair and study the man who used to terrify me. Who would pound his fist against the top of his desk and bellow threats when things didn’t go his way.
He’s nothing like he used to be. Brows pulled in. A scowl marring his features. The weight of the world on his shoulders. An aura of tension and danger.
Because he is no longer the don.
You are.
Is it really possible that he’s changed that much?
Looking at him now, he’s relaxed. Happy.
Fuck, am I jealous?
Then I remember why I’m here.
Tension tightens in my shoulders, and I lock my gaze to his as I ask, “Did you kill my mother?”
My question takes him by surprise. His eyebrows snap together, and his eyes narrow. Silence stretches between us as he mentally tries to put the pieces together. Why am I asking? Who told me? What are the consequences of answering with the truth?
He begins to nod slowly, his expression resigned. Almost as if the above questions don’t even matter to him anymore.
“You’ve been speaking to your new father-in-law, I take it,” he says.
It’s not a question. It’s a statement.
“It doesn’t matter who I’ve been talking to.” My tone is as sharp as a knife. “Answer the question. And I want the goddamn truth.”
He sighs as if he always knew we’d be having this conversation one day.
“Your mother was a thorn in my side, that is the truth,” he says. “But I didn’t kill her.”
I tilt my head. “Vincent Isle Ciccula was lying?”
“Not exactly.” He opens his hands on the desk. “What he thought he saw and what actually happened aren’t exactly the same thing.”
“Mama wasn’t working for the feds?”
“Oh, she was working for the feds, but I didn’t kill her.”
“I find it hard to believe. A rat is a rat.”
“No, not in this case. I loved your mother. Even after I discovered the truth about the affair and her running to the feds. I wasn’t the one who brought the gun to the conversation that night.”
“Then tell me how the fuck she ended up dead on the carpet.”
For a moment, I think he’s going to shift the blame to Vincent Isle Ciccula. Claim he came in and shot my mother.
But he doesn’t.
“The person with the gun was your mother.”
I frown. My mother hated guns. As much as she hated the Mafia life. “You’re lying.”
“No, son, I’m not.” His remorse looks genuine, I’ll give him that. “She knew I’d discovered the affair she was having with Vincent. I assume he told you about that too?”
“I’m aware that they had an affair.”
“I also knew about her involvement with the feds, thanks to one of my informants. Your mother overheard me talking with this informant. She was terrified and instead of waiting for retribution, she decided to confront me.”
What he says aligns with what Vincent said about her frantic phone call to him that night.
“She came into my den with a gun in her hand and her arm raised. Told me she was leaving. Told me I could have you kids because she was starting a new life in America.”
The pain of having an absent mother renews in my gut.
I always felt her disconnection from her children. The lack of cuddles. The absence of a soothing word. The nonexistent smiles and praise I so desperately craved from her.
I thought I had made peace with it. But learning she was going to give us up to start a new life only reinforces how much she didn’t want us, and even as a grown man, it fucking hurts.
“We fought. We struggled. The gun went off.”
That would be the gunshot Vincent and Alberto heard.
“When Vincent arrived, he found me standing over her body.”
“Why didn’t you tell them what happened? Why make them believe a lie?”
“Because my best friend fucking betrayed me. If I could’ve killed him and got away with it, I would have. I could pass your mother’s death off as a suicide. But disposing of Vincent and Alberto was a little more than I was willing to take on at that moment.” He shakes his head. “I let him go.”
“And Mama? If the gun hadn’t gone off, would you have killed her?”
“Back then?” My father fixes me with apathetic, hooded eyes. “Without a fucking doubt.”
“And now?”
He thinks for a moment. “I wouldn’t touch a hair on her head.”
“Why?” I ask, still struggling to understand this new version of the once ruthless Don De Kysa who knew no mercy.
“Because I am not the same man I was back then, Domenico.” He looks at the photo of his new wife in a frame on his desk, then lifts his gaze back to me. “And I thank the Lord for that every single damn day.”