Page 165 of Disavow

“You always had a way with words, Assanti,” a voice came from above our table.

My eyes slowly lifted to meet a pair of familiar eyes. They were older, a little wiser, but still as wild as the day she moved into my condo.

“Little Monster.” Niello nodded. “Always a pleasure.”

“I’m sure,” Cilla said, taking a seat next to me.

She had a blonde-haired baby on her hip. A tall man stood where he was, which had been next to Cilla, eyeing the seat next to her.

“Sit,” Niello said to Christopher, who seemed to need an invitation from Niello before he did.

The enormity of who I was seeing crashed down on me.

“WHAT THE FUCK IS GOING ON HERE?” I shouted. Even though I was probably imagining it, it seemed like the music became lower, and every eye turned on us.

Cilla threw back her head and laughed. “And you said she wouldn’t take it well, Assanti!”

“Speaking from experience,” he said, taking a drink. “It takes her a while to forgive.”

“And Ineverforget,” I snapped. “Not this, anyway.” I got up to leave, feeling duped by not only my husband but the girl I considered my only friend.

Her hand shot out, grabbing more of my bangles than my arm, but she held on, not letting go. “Please, Rosalia,” she whispered, her eyes tearing up. “I never meant to hurt you. I swear it.”

I wiped at my eyes, remembering the hurt I felt when the detective told me she had been killed. “What happened?” I whispered.

“Take a seat,” she said, letting me go. She placed a kiss on top of the baby’s head, looking away for a second.

My eyes met Niello’s, and he nodded toward my chair.

With a lot of reluctance, I sat back down. I sighed out a weighty breath. “This better be good.”

Turns out, Aniello had had no idea whether she had survived, but he continued to look for her for my sake. He had just found her a week before. After Joey’s car was ambushed and he was killed, she had survived. Refusing to go back to the life she’d lived before, she wanted everyone to think she was dead.

She wanted a new life as badly as we did.

Christopher had known she was the “one” the moment he watched her whack Benjamin with the bat. (It wasn’t storybook perfect, but then again, whose story was?) The day Cilla left with Joey, Christopher had tried to intervene, tried to talk her out of it, but she was being stubborn. He followed them and watched as they were ambushed

He had watched as the car went over the bridge. It was a big drop into fast-moving, murky water, and he would have sworn she couldn’t survive it. The people who ambushed them obviously thought the same, because they immediately took off. Then he saw her surface at the river’s edge and try to flee into the woods. He’d sworn on his “balls” (because Cilla held a knife to them) that he would never rat. (“Romance comes in many forms, okay?” Cilla had veered off course to add.) She’d been wounded—a bullet had penetrated her skin, and her ankle had been broken in the fall. Over the weeks he took care of her, they fell in love and began a new life together. Christopher had no ties, and neither did she.

“That’s how Christopher Junior came to be.” She beamed at me. “He’ll never know what it means to have to marry someone he doesn’t love, Rosalia. He’ll never know what it means to kill someone because he’s ordered to. So if only for him, forgive me. Please,” she said, her voice dipping into a whisper.

My eyes filled with tears, and I held out my arms for her son, then after I held him, I grabbed her hand and squeezed. “We do what we have to for love,” I said.

She sighed and looked at Niello. “I tried to find you, but Aniello Assanti,still, is one of the hardest men to find. He found me in Casablanca. Don’t ask me how. He still refuses to give up his secrets. So I guess he’s still the bestmonsteraround. He can track a scent for years and never lose it.” She stared at him for a few seconds. “The bestmanthere is, if only for what you taught me about what love really is. If you want something hard enough, patience and perseverance brings the payout.”

We toasted to patience and perseverance and vowed to live the second chance at life we’d all been given.

“Now,” Cilla said, getting comfortable. “There’s one thing I’ve always wanted to know but couldn’t ask, at the time.”

“Shoot,” I said.

Cilla grinned. “How did things happen between the two of you before I came along and you lost your memory—you know, from the very beginning. Aniello told me basics, but that’s all. I want to knowthatstory. Because likeStar Wars, this one kind of went in reverse. It’s so twisted, it’s brilliant, but I need it from the beginning. The reader in me has so many questions.”

Niello and I looked at each other at the same time.

“It goes something like this,” I said, grinning. “A fine-as-hell Italian man walks into a club one day…”