A moment later, he walks away, the two men flanking him, and I know as I watch them go that he’s linked to the mafia. Maybe it’s the Benedetti connection to my dad. I’m not sure, but I trust my instinct and right now, instinct is telling me to beware.
“Who is he?” I ask Jonas once Angus Scava is gone.
“No one,” Jonas says, looking me over.
“What is that?” I ask, gesturing to the large envelope he’s holding.
“Nothing.” He doesn’t even look down but sets it on a side table near the door. “I never expected to see you here again.”
“Me either.”
“How’s your head?” he calls over his shoulder, his tone flippant.
I don’t bother to answer him. He’s trying to rile me up. It’s what he does.
He walks into the living room and I follow. It’s the first time I’ve been here since the breakup.
“To what do I owe the honor of your visit?” he asks sarcastically, taking a seat on the couch without offering me one.
I perch on the chair across from him, remembering the other night at the fundraiser. Remembering how violent he’d been. That was the second time he became violent with me and I wonder if it was wise to have come here alone, but I need to do this now.
I take the photo out of my pocket as he studies me, hands folded on his lap. I set it on the table and turn it, moving my hand so he can see it.
In that moment, I think he stops breathing. He just stares at it for a long, long time and I’m not sure what to think as I watch layer after layer of emotion sweep over him.
When I tuck it back into my pocket, he looks at me.
I’d never shown him the photo before. When I broke it off with him, I told him I knew what he’d done. I knew what he’d done with Nora. But that was all, and it was enough. He was guilty. But I hadn’t known the whole story.
“She was pregnant,” I say.
He’s not surprised. I see it on his face. A fine layer of sweat breaks out across his forehead, his skin taking on that sickly sheen it does whenever her name comes up.
“Did you love her?” I ask.
He looks at me and I see the pain in his eyes. But he masks it quickly. “She was my sister. Of course, I loved her.”
“Not like that. You know what I mean.”
He swallows, gets up and walks to the windows. I watch him run a hand through his hair.
“No one would understand what we had,” he finally says.
My eyes fill up and my throat closes and I think what a tragedy this is. What a tragedy for everyone.
“That’s what you wanted to tell me.” Except that when I refused to talk to him, he came to the house and he made sure I knew to keep my mouth shut. He thought I’d reveal his secret. “Why did you want to marry me?” I ask when he turns to face me, hand around his own throat.
“To be close to her.”
“That’s why you wouldn’t touch me.”
“You were just the closest thing to her. No one understands what we had. How we felt. How deeply we loved.”
I’m not moved by his words. By his pain. “How old was she when you…touched her?”
Anger flashes across his face. “It wasn’t like that. Don’t say it like that. Make it ugly—”
“Answer my question!”
He shifts his gaze away and I’m not sure he will answer. “Thirteen.”
“God.” How? For three years? How didn’t I know?
He shakes his head, coming toward me crouching down and taking my hands in his clammy ones. “It wasn’t like that. Not dirty and wrong. She loved me.”
I pull my hands free of his. “You were an adult. She was a child.”
He straightens, backs away. “I thought out of everyone, you’d understand. Nora wasn’t ever a child. Not like you think. You didn’t know her.”
“I know she was thirteen when she changed.”
“Because she loved me. She changed because she loved me.”
“She got pregnant. With your baby.”
Was I unsure for a moment it was his? If I was, any doubt vanishes when I look at his face.
I wonder, suddenly, if he knew about my father and I know I can’t ask. I don’t want to ask.
“That’s why she killed herself? Because of the baby?”
He tries for a smile that collapses instantly. “The pills were for the baby to die. Not her.”
“She slit her wrists after taking the pills, Jonas. She wanted to die.”
He rubs his forehead, squeezing his eyes shut and I see how his hand trembles. I wonder how long he’s been holding onto this.
“She wasn’t supposed to die. She told me. She promised she knew the pills would only kill the baby.”
“Your baby. You left her alone to kill the baby you put inside her. She was a child. You were the adult.”
He shakes his head again and his eyes get that strange look inside them, the one I remember after Nora died. The one I saw often while we were engaged. Like a deer caught in the headlights of an oncoming truck.
“She loved me. We loved each other.”
I need to go. I don’t want to be here for another second. “I need you to go away, Jonas.”
“What?”
“Leave here. Disappear for a while.”
“I can’t do that.”
“You have to.”
“Why?”
“Because when I tell Hayden the truth, he’s going to kill you.”
32
Hayden
“I think you should come by the club, sir,” Peter says nervously into the phone.
“Why?”
“Someone dropped off a package for you.”
“Who?”
“I don’t know. He didn’t give his name, but I thought he might be with the gentleman with whom you met the other morning.” It’s like he can’t bring himself to say Benedetti’s name.
“I’m on my way to see Benedetti.”
“Sir, I—”
“Never mind,” I say. When Peter gets nervous, I’ve learned from experience it’s best to manage it quickly. “I’ll swing by on my way.”
After disconnecting, I tell the driver about the change in plans just as another call comes in from the man I had watching Persephone and her sister.
“She’s gone, sir,” he says as soon as I pick up.
“Alone?”
“Yes. Tail is in place. He’ll send you her location ASAP.”
“Thank you.”
I dial Persephone, who doesn’t pick up. I don’t expect her to, though. Her words from the night before echo: “You don’t know the whole story.”
She does. And I’m going to learn the truth today.
But I have to handle the Lizzie Abbot issue first. I don’t have to think too hard to imagine what Scava will do with the compromising photos.
When we get to the club, I find Peter waiting for me just inside the entrance.
“Okay, where is this package?”
He lifts a large sealed folder out of a drawer in his desk and hands it to me. Although not thick, it’s heavier than I expect. And I can guess what’s inside.