Page 23 of Forbidden War (Forbidden 2)
Seeming not to notice my shame, Marco goes on, “Are you honestly going to look me in the eye and tell me you don’t have even a single drop of information that could be useful?”
I am momentarily stunned by the direction this chat has taken. The last thing I expected from him was concern over Livvie’s abduction. I mean, of course everybody is frantic over it, but the Bellantis have also been working hard to keep up appearances and go about their lives as normally as possible. As for Marco specifically—between his shiny new car, and the party, and him slipping off with Jessica last night, I didn’t dream this would be the topic of our discussion.
“Why is this suddenly bothering you now?” I ask. “Did Armani get a lead?”
“No.” He glares. “And for the record, this has never stopped bothering me. Stop equivocating. Tell me what you know.”
A beat of silence passes between us. There’s hardness in his expression that I’ve never seen before. Armani already suspects that I have something to do with all the trouble my former family has caused the Bellantis, and now Marco is insinuating that I’m willfully withholding information. Does he suspect me, too?
“If there was anything I could think of that might be useful to you, I would’ve mentioned it,” I insist. “Do you think I want an innocent woman being held against her will?”
He spreads his hands, as if to say, Well? Do you?
Fine, I’ll play this game. If this is what Marco wants, I’ll give it to him. I need to at least keep on semi-decent terms with my husband if I’m going to be a Bellanti.
“Okay. My uncle has a holding cell inside his office at the main house,” I say haltingly. “It consists of several rooms, but I’ve never seen beyond the first room, which…used to be a place of punishment for me. The whole of the space may be huge, or not, I really don’t know.”
I glance up at Marco, but his face is stone.
Clearing my throat, I continue, my voice growing stronger. “I also know that the basement is where a lot of my uncle’s men hang out.”
“Hang out and do what?” Marco asks.
“I have no idea. I always assumed it was just cigars and scotch and poker or whatever, but I’m honestly not sure what goes on down there. Work? Pleasure? Both? I used to see them come in and out through the basement door sometimes.”
“What kind of men?”
I shrug. “Just…made men. You know the type. Hard. Mean. Usually well-dressed.”
Marco nods. “Not the type you fuck with or stare at or ask questions. I got it.”
“Right. Anyway, even if I wanted to, I couldn’t tell you the names of any of them because my uncle assigns code names that mean nothing to me. I could try to write a list of what I remember if it would be helpful, but I doubt it’ll come to much.”
“It’s more helpful than you know,” Marco says. “Get me that list. What else?”
“Um, my uncle is gone a lot. Sometimes for weeks. He has a bunch of other properties, but I don’t know where. He turns houses over left and right, so the places I remember as a kid haven’t belonged to him in a long time.”
“Add what you can to the list anyway,” he says. “Even names of cities nearby, or regions, local restaurants, landmarks. Anything you can think of could be a clue.”
A specific face pops into my head, and all of a sudden I remember something else. “Wait. Frankie showed me a picture of Livvie and her bodyguard. I think he’s one of my uncle’s men.”
Marco looks dubious. “You’re only just now remembering him?”
I frown. “I couldn’t place him before. He had a tattoo on his neck, though, and—”
At the mention of the tattoo, Marco’s face drops. “Your uncle’s associate was Livvie’s bodyguard? Jesus. That must be how they got her. I need to tell my brothers. Not that it helps us now. We need a location. You think she’d be in the holding cell you mentioned?”
My shoulders slump as I realize how futile this is. How full of dead ends my information might be. “I don’t know. It’s possible. I’m telling you everything I can.”
But that’s not true…last night while I was trying to fall asleep, I had a couple flashes of a rustic cabin with split log siding and red trim. It’s the place I was thinking about when I woke up this morning. A place that has haunted me for half my life. Especially when I’m under stress.
“There is one place I know. A cabin. I was there once when I was little. It’s not far because I remember driving there from Napa after lunch and we got there before sundown…”
Marco’s eyes narrow as he leans forward in his chair. “You were only there once?”
I nod. “I was six or seven. I went there with my uncle and my father, but I don’t recall why. I remember being surprised that this cabin existed. There was a lake behind a bunch of pines, but I wasn’t allowed to swim in it. My father said it was contaminated.”
Marco listens intently as I tell him the story. Tell him how they told me to wait in the car, but how I didn’t listen. After they’d been gone for a long time and the sun started to sink in the sky, I was so bored that I snuck out of the back seat and wandered around the property. I could see the lake through the trees. It was beautiful. I thought maybe I could take my shoes off and dip my feet in and not get caught… My stomach clenches at the memory, but I keep talking.
As I started to make my way through the overgrown shrubs and saplings and sticker bushes, I saw something lying in a heap in the weeds. Getting closer, I could make out a big black trash bag, stuffed with something that bulged, leaking darkly onto the grass. A pile of freshly dug dirt waited alongside an oblong hole in the ground. That’s when my uncle came up behind me and grabbed me by the shoulder.
I told him I wanted to see the lake, but he said, “Your father already told you, Karina. Piedmont is contaminated. Now get your ass back in the car. I’m locking you in this time.”
Then he dragged me back, his fingers digging into my skin so hard that I had bruises later. I start to tremble at the flood of images, the memory of my terror and the pain afterward.
Something flashes over Marco’s face and suddenly he kneels before me, taking both of my hands in his. “Piedmont? Are you sure that was the name?”
“I—I don’t know. It just popped into my head. Maybe I’m misremembering.”
Marco stares at me for a minute, eyes distant, the wheels turning in his brain.
“Thank you,” he finally says.
He brushes his lips against my forehead and then leaves me, striding from the room with purpose.
