Page 66 of Urgent Vows
"No."
"I know you are newly married, but it is not as if…" She lets her voice trail off, clearly uncomfortable. "Regardless, there are plans we need to make for my brother's funeral." Lora's voice is choking with tears when she says the last.
I have no sympathy. I do not say I am sorry for her loss because I am not. She lived in that house. She knew what Francesco did to Catalina. She could have come to me, she did not.
"We spent two hours at the hospital yesterday seeing to injuries inflicted by your brother on my wife."
"What? I…that doesn't make sense. Why would he hurt her before the wedding?"
So, she knows Catalina was unharmed before arriving at the church. "Are you saying he needed a reason to hurt her?"
"What has she been telling you?" Lora asks, aghast.
"Something he should have admitted to long ago. You are aware that I do not place or keep men in positions of authority withinla famigliawhen they visit violence on their families."
"I'd heard something like that," she says cautiously.
"And yet you never told me, your don, that your brother was violent with your niece."
"No."
"Were you aware that he beat his wife as well?"
"What? No. He didn't. Did Catalina say that? She lies sometimes."
"To protect herself from her father." She'd already implied as much. "Not about this."
"Don De Luca, please, believe me, my brother was not a bad man. He had his reasons for treating Catalina the way he did. I never agreed with it, but it didn't happen very often, and he never touched Carlotta. He did not beat Sara. He grieved her death until the day he died."
"That is a lie."
"What? No, despite her not being the woman he was originally promised, he fell for Sara after she gave him their first child."
"Is that what he told you?"
"Yes."
"He lied."
"How can you say that?"
"I have Sara's medical records. They show a pattern of abuse spanning the entirety of their marriage."
"That can't be right."
"He took her to different hospitals and used different versions of her name to hide his base behavior. My father would have demoted him to foot soldier if he had known." I had killed him.
I wasn't telling her that though. Her husband wasn't one of my men, though he lived in my territory, he remained loyal to the Detroit don.
"I don't think so," Lora said. "Your father owed Francesco. He never forgot that."
"What do you think he owed him?"
"Your mother."
What the hell was she talking about?
"Your mother was promised to my brother when they were both young. Then when she grew into such a beauty, your father decided he wanted her. His father arranged it, promising Sara to Francesco instead. That was why he was promoted to consigliere at such a young age. Your father appreciated my brother's loyalty."
