“I didn’t beat her. She’s fine. She’s already coming to.”
“Gabriela?” My father’s voice sounds unusual. Tender, almost.
I blink my eyes open, but when I move, the back of my head throbs. I reach a hand to the spot, feel the bump, remember how I got it the instant Rafa comes into view looming behind my father.
I startle, my eyelids flying open.
“It’s all right. He won’t touch you again,” my father says as he stands, giving Rafa a hateful glance.
I look around, sit up. I’m in the living room of the Todt Hill house, half-lying half-sitting on a chaise. I sit up, lick my lips. I’m parched.
“Here,” my father hands me a glass of water.
I take it, drink two sips and watch Rafa walk away, shaking his head. He leans against the far wall and watches me, his eyebrows furrowed together, the look in his eyes dark.
“Don’t look at him,” my father says, taking the water glass from me and setting it aside. “He won’t lay a finger on you ever again. Fucking Sicilian brutes.”
“Be careful, old man,” Rafa warns.
My father doesn’t even bother turning toward him, instead, he takes the seat across from mine.
“You’re going to see Gabe.”
“I was.”
“Don’t you think to come to visit your father when you’re in town? Why, I wonder?”
I blink, shift my gaze. I know this answer.
“That’s right. Because you helped your bastard husband steal my son out from under me.”
“Gabe isn’t a thing to steal. He’s a human being.”
“Hmm,” he says, cocking his head to the side. “You of all people should know better than that by now, Gabriela.” He glances at Rafa. “All things can be bought in our world. And all things that can be bought can also be stolen. You stole my son out from under me.”
“You locked your son away after making him what he is. Do you know that people think Gabe is dead? You don’t even acknowledge him as your son anymore.”
I see the twitch in his eye, the tell-tale sign that what I just said got to him.
He breathes in a deep breath and stands.
I would stand too, but I’m a little dizzy.
“Why am I here?” I ask.
“Because I miss you,” he says.
“Liar.”
He grins, a coldness seeping into his eyes. “You’re here because you did something very stupid.”
I stare up at him.
“Are you playing house out there in that Sicilian hole? Are you spreading your legs for that bastard? For our enemy?”
I bolt to my feet and have to fight the dizziness. “I’m leaving!”
My father steps toward me and it takes all I have to remain standing. “You’ll leave when I’m finished. Now sit down.”
I don’t.
He leans into me. “Sit. Down.”
I want to say I do it because I’m dizzy but it’s a lie. Only when I’m down does he step away.
“You’re more and more like your mother every day, you know that?”
“Don’t talk about mom.”
“She was a traitor too,” he says, ignoring me, looking like a giant as he looms over me and all I can think is I wish Stefan were here. I wish he were standing between us.
“And you taught her, didn’t you?” I say, bitterness edging the words.
He gives an odd grin, exhales and walks to the liquor cabinet to pour himself a drink. He doesn’t offer Rafa or me one, not that I’d take it.
“You killed her.” It’s strange how it sounds when it’s said out loud like that. Just a fact. Just words.
My father’s back is to me. I watch as he lifts the glass to drink.
“I saw,” I say. I don’t mean to whisper but that’s how quietly the words come. “I saw it all.”
I shudder and the sudden cold makes the tiny hairs on my arms stand on end.
He turns to face me, and, in my periphery, I can see Rafa and I wonder what he’d do if my father pounced on me now. Would he help me? Or would he stand back and watch?
“You were hiding? Spying?”
“You don’t deny it?” I know this truth. I’ve known it for years. Why does it hurt when he doesn’t tell me I’m crazy? Tell me I don’t know what I’m talking about and that I remember wrong because he’d never hurt my mother.
“I loved her. I love her still. She never listened, though. Stubborn as a mule. Like you.”
God. Why is this so hard to hear when I’ve known all along?
“I want to go now,” I say to Rafa.
My father finishes his drink and pours another. “It was an accident.”
Here it is. The denial. His too late denial.
“An accident? You held her under the water. I remember.”
“She made me very angry, Gabriela.”
“So it was her fault?”
“She was fucking a soldier. The man I paid to keep her safe.” His voice is tight. I know that tone. It’s the one that says the rage beneath is just barely leashed. It’s the one that says to tread lightly. Or better yet, run for cover.