Cruel Summer

CHAPTER THIRTY-NINE: WINTER

Loveisridiculousand it’s certainly not what I saw in Vito’s eyes the other day.

I keep telling myself the lie over and over again, but I’m not delusional.

I know what I saw.

And I know it can’t change things.

But it does.

The emotion that I saw in Vito’s eyes, it was true, genuine. Our sex wasn’t the only thing that was raw. Which creates more problems for me. Because Vito killed my mother, according to Diamond.

And that’s not something I can forgive.

But I still don’t have complete proof that Vito did what Diamond said he did, and I'm waiting on Amerie to verify that those documents are real.

I don’t get the feeling that Diamond is deceiving me, though I know it's possible. I don’t really know the man, after all. All I know is what he’s told me and what I’ve seen, which leaves me with little knowledge. He’s part of Seven Quad, Maddox, their leader, is his dad. He hates the Costa family, something he’s been crystal clear about since the first moment we met.

And he’s never made a secret of it in front of the Costas either.

Which means this could be a set up.

But something in my heart is telling me that that isn’t the case, that he’s really related to me and not lying.

But the other part of my heart is telling me that Vito didn’t kill my mom.

The stupid part.

I’m not completely delusional, I know that Vito isn’t a good man. He just executed a man in front of me, for the second time, to prove a point.

He’s Giovanni’s counterpart in the same way Enzo is to Maximo, minus the fucking each other, that I know of. Whatever Giovanni tells him to do, he does. So if Giovanni gave the order for him to kill my mom, then he did. It’s not as if he knew me at the time, and even if he did, his loyalty to Giovanni comes first. That much I know.

But would he lie to me everyday, look me in the face knowing that he killed my mother?

But maybe he doesn’t know, which is another option I’ve considered. He could have no idea that he killed my mother. I’m sure he lost track of the amount of people he’s killed a long time ago.

So my mother could just be a forgotten face for him.

Which doesn’t make the situation any better.

I groan, burying my head in my hands. I don’t know what to do with all these thoughts moving around in my head. And I know I won’t be able to get rid of them until I can find answers to all of my questions.

Which means I need to get to work.

I don’t have time to do any more moping or feeling sorry for myself.

I run my tongue along my teeth as I try to figure out the best way to go about moving forward but the answer doesn’t take long to come to me.

Lucia.

If I want answers, she’s the most likely to give them to me with complete honesty. She’s made it clear more often than not that her loyalties aren’t completely with Giovanni, they’re with herself.

But I don’t know how to get in touch with her.

The last time I saw her she’d said that she was leaving again to work. I bite down on my lip.

Maximo.