The Fall(80)

“You might hate it, but it doesn’t make it any less a fact.” She opened her mouth, refusing to stop talking even though I didn’t want to hear another f*cking word. “You have people who can find out things, do some digging. The marriage was annulled after she disappeared but the records will still exist. Paper clippings, there will be proof that Rose was married to him.”

“So what?” I laughed, wondering how much of the Kool-Aid she’d actually drunk. “You think there was only one Rose in the whole of Chicago? Don’t be so na?ve.”

“No, but I bet there is only one Rose who fits your mother’s description and disappeared about eight months before you were born.” She moved away from the wall, eyeing me carefully as she put some distance between us. “What did you tell me about coincidences? You didn’t believe in them.”

So Catherine f*cking tells me nothing—you know, the person who was actually involved—but spends five minutes with Sofia then all of a sudden spills her guts?

If she hadn’t been dead, I would have killed her myself.

“It was eating Catherine alive. I could see it.” Sofia filled the silence. “She didn’t tell you because your mother died trying to protect you from Franco, Catherine promised her that he would never know.”

“Just stop.” My hands shot out, the only reason they didn’t make contact with anything is because she’d been smart enough to keep her distance. “I can’t f*cking think.”

Intellectually I agreed, assuming this checked out—the stuff about Franco’s first wife—then it would be a one in a million chance that it was bullshit. Like a f*cking lottery win, except instead of a truck load of cash you got syphilis. And I was just as excited at the prospect of being Franco’s kid as I was at getting a sore dick and going blind.

“So even if it is true—and I’m not saying I believe this horseshit—but say it is.” Pretty sure I’d prefer the sore dick at this point. “This affects you how?”

“Because I know what this information could do to you, I can see it in your eyes.” She looked like she was carefully considering her words. Good thing too because if she mentioned the need to save me again, I wasn’t going to be responsible for my actions. “And because I want to make sure that your father and mine never destroy another life again.”

It was a little late for that. She was nothing like the girl I’d met on her doorstep. Seems like it or not, there was more of Jimmy in her than we both knew was there. And me, well I guess I’d always been a bastard, I guess it just made more sense now.

“If anyone has the right for revenge, it’s me, Sofia.” And she better hear the words because I wasn’t joking. “You don’t get to make the rules on that. I don’t give a f*ck how many dead nuns you promised.”

I watched the lump in her neck bob up and down her throat. She might have a fairytale in her head about how this was going to play out, but she knew what I was capable of. I guess the apple didn’t fall too far from the tree after all. The difference between me and my so-called dad—I had nothing left to lose.

“So, what are you going to do?” she asked, tiptoeing around the powder keg she’d just lit a match near.

“Exactly what I said I was going to do.” I rolled my head to one side and then the other, fighting a losing battle against the tension in my neck. “Get you out of here and then come back for them.”

“What if I won’t go?”

“Why would you stay?”

“The same reason why you won’t leave.”

I hated that her reasoning made f*cking sense. She had every right to make her own choices and if sticking a knife through her father’s heart was one of them, then I didn’t get to stop her. Fuck knows the bastard deserved it. But there was so much noise in my head and part of it was me not wanting that for her.

My emotional grid was all over the place. But I didn’t have time or the inclination to process it, and I hated f*cking feelings to begin with.

While the possible new branch to my family tree sure put a new spin on things, it didn’t change that the reason I knew any of it was because of the woman in front of me.

I still wasn’t sure if I was pissed off or grateful, probably both. And whatever was driving her—why she was so compelled to see this through to the end with me—it was probably the same reason as to why I hadn’t put her in a body bag when Jimmy asked for it.

Like it or not, there was a f*cking connection. Maybe it was just the fact we both had sadists as fathers, or maybe it was because we both didn’t lie down and die. But I was confident she would be all right as long we stuck together. And then, when this was all over, she could leave like she was supposed to. Without me, because that had always been the plan.

“I know you don’t want to hear it. And I can’t imagine what it must be like for you. It’s like everything you’ve ever known has been turned upside down. But even though you are Franco Santini’s son, you are not him. For once, let someone in. Let me in.”

“Don’t turn this into a tragedy, Sofia,” I warned her, the words ironic considering we were halfway there already. “I’ll be disappointed if you aren’t smarter than that.”





It took a while before the steady stream of traffic slowed at the church. For a nobody, the nun sure did attract a lot of attention. And instead of me using that time to smash my fist against the wall, I’d calmed down a little and let Sofia tell me what she knew. Yeah, I couldn’t believe I’d been so adult about it either. I may have checked my balls a couple of times just to make sure they were still there. Wonders will never cease.