Page 39 of Crowned in Sin
“She taught me to sing,” he says as he watches me nibble. “She taught me to draw. She taught me all the things at night, and then my father would beat them out of me by morning.”
Mom did the same with me. We only ever spent time with each other at night, either when Frank was working nights or after he went to bed.
"Anastasio tells me that that cop called you his daughter at the restaurant," Nico says quietly. “You never told me your father was in the OCCB."
Anger rushes up at me at the thought of anyone mistaking Frank for my father. As if he fucking earned that title. As if it werehisshoes that I threw over the power lines all those years ago.
“He’s not my father,” I reply bitterly. “He's my stepfather."
Nico goes still. His amber eyes don't leave my face. "How?"
"What’s there to know?" I stab at the ziti. "His name is Frank Carpenter. He married my mom when I was fourteen, three years after my dad died."
Even saying his name makes it feel like I’m swallowing battery acid. I look away at the open window, and I swear I can hear mom’s sobbing in the bathroom again.
I expect Nico to push for more. To lean in and grab and demand until I give him the whole damn thing. That's the only way I've seen him operate—take, take, take, until the world rearranges itself around what he wants.
Which makes it all the more surprising that he doesn’t move from the chair.
"What did he do to her?" he asks.
And maybe it's because he's not crowding me. Maybe it's because I am so tired of holding all of it inside my own ribs that the seams are starting to give. Or maybe it's just because, for once, Nico’s letting me speak instead of speaking for me.
But against every instinct I have, against the little voice screaming at me to keep my mouth shut, I keep going.
"He hurt her." My voice drops to almost nothing. "For years and years."
The next part jams in my throat, and I can’t push those awful memories back down fast enough before a choked noise comes rushing out. Tears sting against the back of my nose, and I wipe angrily at my eyes.
Nico’s jaw is tight. There's a muscle ticking under the scar, and his hands are steepled together between his knees. Whateverhe's feeling, he's holding it on a short leash, same as me. I get the strange sense that he’s doing all of that for my benefit.
“Where is your mother now?” I ask as I try to deflect.
“Capri,” he says quietly. “Where father could never reach her because her family swore they’d kill him if they ever saw him there.”
“And when was the last time you saw her?”
He inclines his head towards the picture frame on the nightstand. “When we took that photo. I was eleven, and that was the day she told me she never wanted to see me again.”
The spoon stops mid-air. “Why?”
He closes his eyes, and a sad smile plays across his face. “That’s a story for another time,piccola.”
For a moment, Nico and I exist not as captor and captive, but as two children who watched our mothers move through the only hours of a day that belonged to them.
I nod, and take another small bite.
"You came back to help her get away from him, didn’t you?” Now it’s his turn to deflect.
"Yes," I whisper.
For the first time in seven years, I allow that admission to scrape its way out of my throat. Guilt and hurt mix together in an awful blend through that single word.
“She told me to be brave the last time I saw her.” The words start pouring out now, and I can’t stop myself even if I want to. “Shetold me to walk away and never come back. And I have for seven years…”
The spoon clatters to the ground. I don’t bother picking it back up. I don’t feel hungry anymore.
“But then she told you she needed help.”
