Page 4 of Her Ghostly Embrace
Would her father have let up on the constant surveillance if Gia’s condition hadn’t worsened the older she’d gotten? It had been terrible when the headaches had first hit around her tenth birthday, but her teen years hadn’t been as bad.
Her twenties had been a shitshow so far.
Gia unearthed a warm container from the bag and opened it. Penne alla vodka. Her favorite. Out of everyone in the family, Marc was by far the kindest.
“Thanks for this.” Gia grabbed the accompanying fork and dove in. “What are you up to tonight?”
He shoved his hands in his pockets. “I’ve got to do the rounds. Then I’m meeting the boys. Father’s got shit to do too.”
So the house would be—well, not empty, it never was—free of her immediate family at least.
“I was thinking about Ma earlier,” Gia said smoothly, loading her fork with pasta.
Marc’s shoulders stiffened. “Gia…” he said, as if she’d brought up something they’d agreed not to discuss.
“What? We never talk about her.”
“What’s there to say? She’s been dead for twenty years. Come on. Don’t do this now. Things are tense. Shit’s going down, and Father has enough on his plate as we get ready for the expansion.”
“I’m not mentioning her to Father,Marco.”
His posture relaxed slightly. “Good. And don’t say my name like that.” He was Marc to all his close friends, as if it was some big honor to drop the O.
“Why can’t you and I talk about Ma?” Gia put her fork down. “She died to save me. Why isn’t she ever honored? Father goes on about Jake’s sacrifice for the family all the damn time, and then he acts like his wife did something wrong.”
How had she never seen it so plainly before? Had she really let pain and guilt overshadow everything else? Letti should have been a legend for dying to save one of Franco’s children.
Marc’s posture sagged, and his expression turned almost pitying. “Drop it, Gia.”
“No.”
A flash of something like hurt contorted her brother’s face. He ran a hand through his hair. “What happened is in the past. Look, I’ve got to go.” He turned toward the door.
Gia’s heart jumped into her throat. “What really happened?”
Marc froze. He shot a look over his shoulder, his eyes narrowed. “If that’s the question you’re asking, then it should be obvious why I don’t want to talk about it.”
He stormed out of the room, shutting the door behind him.
Gia pushed her food away, feeling sick again. He should have said:You already know what happened.
Fuck.
Dying to save her from kidnapping wasn’t Letti’s whole story, or not the real story. And Marc knew it was a lie. Maybe the memory of them in the blanket fort wasn’t total bullshit.
Could the lawyer on the phone have been telling the truth?
Gia’s throat constricted. If Franco wasn’t her biological father and he’d found out… Had the whole kidnapping thing been a lie to explain away the confusing things she half remembered? To cover up the truth? To shut her up? To save face?
And Marcknew.
Gia had to talk to the lawyer, but not on her cellphone. If this turned out to be true, she couldn’t risk anyone seeing the calls on the phone records—beyond what was already there—or risk anyone listening in. Her phone probably wasn’t tapped because she never did anything interesting as far as her family was concerned, but she couldn’t risk it.
Not with something like this.
Most people might struggle to believe their father had their mother killed for having another man’s baby, but Gia wasn’t most people. Franco absolutely would have. Out of the whole scenario, this was one aspect she didn’t doubt. Gia held no illusions about what her father was capable of.
To Franco, women were expendable, there to fill a role. Except for Gia, who was an obligation and only of any use to Franco if she reflected well on him, which was why her illness remained secret. Why Salvator’s other job was to make sure nothing exposing happened while Gia was out of the house.
