“No. My mother married my father right out of high school. It was within a month of her graduation, as a matter of fact. My father dated her his senior year. My uncle was never in the picture like that.”
“That’s not true.” Mitzy sits back and crosses her arms.
“How do you know?”
“I dig, but honestly, this was a simple thing to discover. I’m surprised you didn’t know.”
“Evidently, there are a lot of things I don’t know. How did you find that out?”
“I talked to a couple of teachers from that school.” Mitzy’s flippant answer astounds me.
“Wow. That’s thorough.”
“I’m always thorough. Evidently, your mother and Marco Rossi dated until your mother’s junior year. Everyone thought they’d get married, but all that changed your father’s senior year.”
“I’ve never heard of any of this.”
“By the time your father graduated, he and your mother were engaged. A year later, they married.”
“I knew that part. It always sounded romantic to me. High school sweethearts getting married.”
“After you mentioned something being off between your father and uncle, I did some digging. Discovered that and more.” Mitzy looks at her laptop.
“More? Such as?”
“What you mentioned about the Belvedere and the twenty-fifth floor. Your grandfather set aside that space, not your father. As you mentioned, your uncle ran things down here, under your father’s supervision, while he managed his offices in New York. I don’t think it’s too much of a stretch to connect the dots from there.”
“Do you think that’s why my father insisted I run the Belvedere?”
“I don’t like making assumptions, but I’ll go out on a limb and say that sounds like the most plausible answer.”
“And you think my mother and my uncle were carrying on an affair the whole time?”
“There’s no proof, but it does tie everything together.”
“And the questions about my mother and uncle … are you insinuating foul play? You don’t think they …?” I struggle to swallow past the thick lump closing off my throat. “You don’t think they had anything to do with it? Is that what you’re trying to say?”
“I dislike assumptions or jumping to conclusions with insufficient data. I’m merely postulating … or rather thinking out loud that there may be another reason behind your father’s death.”
“Is there any chance my father wasn’t involved in human trafficking?”
“I wish I could say he wasn’t, and while we have no direct evidence, I highly doubt he wasn’t. I don’t see how he couldn’t have known.”
“But if …” I squeeze my eyes shut as I grasp for straws. I refuse to believe my father, the man I loved and admired growing up, would willingly kidnap young women and children and … I can’t even finish that thought.
Mitzy and Forest might suspect my father, but I hold on to hope and my belief that my father was a good man.
Lancaster.
The name rushes at me from somewhere in the depths of my mind. I know that name.
There it goes. The last vestige of hope I had left about my father’s role in this snaps and floats away.
32
LIAM
Wolfe drives us in circles while Mitzy briefs me on the new tech and how best to use it. By the third circuit, I can no longer hold in my curiosity.
“Are they following us?” I resist the urge to twist around to look behind us.
Mitzy, who faces toward the back, glances over my shoulder, peering at the traffic behind us. She shrugs, oblivious to the tail I feel in my gut.
No way in hell did Gerald and Stefan leave us to our own devices. The moment Gerald called in to his boss, they were given instructions they dared not fail. All eyes are focused on the new man hanging around their precious princess.
I’m looking forward to meeting Marco Rossi and rub my hands in anticipation.
Forest keeps his council, remaining quiet for the duration of the ride. The formidable warrior seems somehow less than before.
Tired.
As if the weight of his burden to rid this world of those who seek to destroy innocent lives is slowly wearing him down.
I hate to see that in such a stoic man. He’s our rock. The anchor which holds us steady on our path. We are the Guardians: his army of the righteous men and women who strive to rid the world of the evil which infests it. To see him shouldering the strain of that impossible task is a sucker punch to the gut. It’s a reminder our heroes are human, after all.
Into that epic silence, Maria and I hold hands.
She grounds me.
She gives me strength.
She infuses me with the power to protect and defend as no one else can.
It’s my solemn duty to fulfill that role and an oath I reaffirm right then and there. Whatever it takes, I will protect Maria.
She’s quiet, immersed in her thoughts. No doubt she battles a vicious and bloody conflict warring within her. Turning against her family can’t be easy. I wish there was something I could do to ease her pain. While she stares out the window, I sit beside her, lending what strength my presence might give.
I wish I could wrap her in my arms and take away her pain, but that is a path she needs to walk alone.
Her silence crashes all around me. Like thunder, it surrounds and drowns me. Instead of pulling her into my arms, I settle for threading our fingers together. My thumb rubs over the back of her hand. The heat of my body bleeds into hers. I’d give her more, if I could.
“Like merry little lambs.” Wolfe looks at me through the rearview mirror. “I have a feeling their fear for Marco Rossi is greater than their fear of you.”
“They’ll learn.” I drum my fingers on my knee, getting antsy to get going.
While not a fan of undercover ops, I have a unique flair for those particular jobs. It goes back to my high school days when I was a triple threat. I excelled in sports, academics, and dating all the hot chicks, but it was in drama and theater where I ruled the school.
Of course, I had a bit of a leg up considering my mother’s atmospheric rise as an actress granted me the opportunity to explore years of child acting gigs. In the end, however, it wasn’t for me.
I aspired to greater things, like walking in the footsteps of a man I never knew. When it became clear to my mother I didn’t want to be an actor, she put aside her Hollywood dreams for her son and allowed me to pursue mine.
My father may have died in service to his country months before I was born, but it didn’t matter to me. I wanted to travel his path, even if it meant sacrificing my life in service to my country like he ultimately sacrificed his.
I always get a kick over the L.A. stereotype that every waiter and waitress are either aspiring actors or out of work actresses. As often as it’s true, the reverse happened for my mother.
She never aspired to anything more than taking care of her son and being the best mother possible. In those two things, she succeeded where many struggle or fail.
I have the best mother in the world.
She was a waitress, one of the few in L.A. not interested in acting, but for her the stars aligned. A late night of pouring coffee for a beleaguered director turned into the opportunity of a lifetime when he asked her to take a leap of faith. He saw something within her, a hunger to do more with her life, that piqued his interest. My mother took that leap. She turned in her apron and made history.