Total pages in book: 49
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
Estimated words: 44899 (not accurate)
Estimated Reading Time in minutes: 224(@200wpm)___ 180(@250wpm)___ 150(@300wpm)
“And your mother,” Tonio asked carefully, “did she ever mention me?”
I barked out a laugh that held no humor. “Mom was never sober enough to tell me about much of anything. So no, you didn’t really come up.” I met his gaze directly. “I always figured she had no clue who my father was. Just another john or dealer she fucked for her next fix.”
The calculated cruelty of my words hung in the air between us. I watched Tonio’s face, searching for anger, for disgust, for any reaction that would confirm what I truly believed with all my heart. Men like him didn’t care about women like my mother, or daughters born from mistakes.
But all I saw was grief and loss. I saw something else, too. Determination. “She wasn’t always like that,” he said quietly. “Not when I knew her. At least, not when I first knew her.”
And just like that, the ground shifted beneath me again, the world tilting on its axis as I prepared to hear a version of my mother I’d never known. I stared at Tonio, searching his face for the lie. Men had been feeding me bullshit my entire life. I’d gotten pretty damn good at spotting the tells. But as Tonio spoke about my mother, his carefully maintained façade cracked around the edges. Something raw peeked through, something that looked disturbingly like genuine pain.
“Jennifer was studying art when we met,” he began, his voice taking on the measured cadence he seemed to use for business matters. “She was talented. An extraordinary artist.” He looked down at his hands where they rested on the table. “We were young. I was already working for my father. She was… free. Uninhibited in a way I’d never been allowed to be.”
I felt Sully’s arm tighten slightly around my shoulders, a silent gesture of support. I didn’t shrug it off. Didn’t lean into it either. Just let it exist while I focused on Tonio’s story, trying to reconcile this vibrant, artistic woman with the hollow-eyed ghost who’d raised me. No. She hadn’t raised me; I’d raised myself. She’d lived with me, and when she moved on, I tagged along.
“How’d you meet?” I asked.
Something softened in Tonio’s expression. “She was painting the sunrise at a park near where we lived at the time. I was there meeting someone for business. She told me to move because I was blocking her light.” His lips curved in what might have been a smile. “No one spoke to me that way. I was instantly intrigued.”
“And let me guess. She fell for your charm and money?”
Tonio shook his head, chuckling softly. “She didn’t give a damn about either. Took me three weeks to convince her to have coffee with me.” The formal façade slipped farther as he continued. “Six months to get her to move in with me. She kept her crappy apartment as a studio even after that. Said she needed a space that was just hers.” The stubborn independence sounded familiar. I’d inherited that much from her, at least. “She used cocaine, but I think we all did back then, so I didn’t think anything of it. Then one day, she vanished. It wasn’t unusual for her to be gone a few days at a time. But I never saw her again.”
I cleared my throat and laced my fingers together as I rested my hands on the table. “Well. You remember a vastly different woman than the one I knew.”
“Once I realized she wasn’t coming home, I searched for weeks. Had my men looking everywhere.”
“But you didn’t find her,” I stated softly.
“No.” His admission was quiet. “I didn’t go after her as hard as I should have because my father asked me not to. He said this life wasn’t for her, that she needed someone safe who could take her to art galleries without fear of getting shot.” Tonio looked down at his hands. “I never saw or heard from her again. My father, Seth, hated getting women involved with the family. He thought we made them vulnerable simply by caring for them.”
“That’s… a really sad way of looking at shit, man.”
Tonio snorted a laugh. “Well, after Seth gave his blessing on the marriage of my sister to his enforcer, he started second-guessing himself when he never had before.”
“I don’t want to seem rude, but you threw it out there. So, what happened with your sister? Because I know something did.”
“Supposedly, she died during childbirth. But it turned out her husband faked her death and the death of their child.”
“Oh my God.” I covered my mouth with my hand. “How horrible.”
“Long story, but the bottom line is, Dad had just lost a daughter. He’d lost Mom years before. So, in his mind, if Jen left on her own, there was less danger to her than being with us.” Tonio scrubbed a hand over his face. “To be honest, I understood where he was coming from. But I swear to God, I had no idea Jen was pregnant. I only found out by accident when a colleague found a match for my DNA in the system.”