The Wrath of Cain (The Syndicate, #1)(35)

Chapter Twelve


Calla



I feel like an energy field. My emotions have all of a sudden risen past their capacity; even though they’ve been pushed to the max, someone is still feeding me just to see how far I will expand.

“Last time I checked, I was the parent in our relationship. So if I say sit down, then sit the hell down. And if I say shut your mouth, then I mean shut your mouth,” big, bad John says.

I’m not afraid of my dad, especially when his soft eyes give him away. He’s towering over my tall frame trying to intimidate me. I want to laugh, no, spit in his face. My entire life has been nothing but a lie. I move to the couch and sit. Not because he told me to, but because I deserve to know what the hell is going on.

“You look like hell,” my deceitful mother says.

Her long, dark hair is pulled into a ponytail. Her loving eyes that look so much like mine send me an apologetic look. She’s in on this, too. Everyone is. Along with Manny, who’s standing off in the corner by the door.

“Yeah, well, what do you expect?” I ask through clenched teeth. “I came here for a divorce, not expecting to be carried away by a lying, cheating, and now criminal husband.”

I peer around my mother, who is now standing in front of me with eyes shooting bullets at my husband. I wonder if he steals those, too. I could use about four of them right now to shoot every one of these deceitful, mafia-loving people. Okay, not really. I could never shoot my parents.

“How long?” I demand.

It’s a simple question, really. One I deserve to know the answer to. I seem to be the only one left in the dark here by the way everyone is looking back and forth at each other as if they’re deciding which one of them should fill me in.

My parents sit down next to me. A fond memory flashes through my mind from when I was five years old. The three of us were sitting on the couch exactly like this while they told me our family dog was struck by a car and died. I cried like a baby, kicking and screaming for Hopper to come back. My dad held me for the longest time, stroking my hair and reassuring me that all dogs go to heaven and Hopper would be waiting there for me someday. I feel just like that little girl again. Except I’m not, I’m an adult. One who has been lied to about everything.

It’s my mom who speaks first. Her hand comes to rest on my knee.

“I’ve been connected to the Diamond family my entire life,” she begins, giving me a little squeeze. “My name was Cecily Abagail Diamond. Salvatore is my older brother.”

I stand and move over to the wall, pressing my back up against it and glaring at everyone in this room. I stop when I land on my mother.

“In other words, you’re a mafia princess,” I say with malice.

“I used to be. That is, until I met your father and fell in love.”

Her smile speaks the truth. Even though my parents would fight and argue when I was growing up, the love they had for each other was very evident, even as a young girl, I knew how much they loved each other.

“I don’t understand, then. Enlighten me here, Mom, or what about you, Dad? How do you fit into all of this?”

I hold my breath and wait for him to speak. The tension in the room coils around me.

“Calla, baby. I really think you need to sit down,” Cain declares.

“I don’t want to sit down. What I do want is the truth from all of you.”

I feel cheated, sad, and humiliated. This is a lot of information to incorporate. I’m so angry right now. With Cain, I had so many questions; with my parents, I feel like they have hidden too much from me since the day I was born. My brain at this minute doesn’t even know how to function. My dad gets up and puts his arm around me, tugging me into his chest.

“Honey, you’re shivering.”

“Please don’t touch me,” I whisper.

I duck out from under his arm and step away. Suddenly, the tension leaves him as if he’s come to some sort of decision. I watch it roll right off of his chest. His eyes turn glassy. My knees start to buckle. I stand firm, though. I’m not weak. I’m frightened and scared for my life; for my family’s lives.

“I’m a hitman,” he says emotionlessly, as if he hasn’t just crumbled my entire world. I’ve worshipped this man my entire life, and now he sits before me telling me he’s a murderer.

“Y…you kill people? Oh, my God! What’s wrong with you people? Don’t any of you care about how badly corrupted this world is? And dead center lies my family. The untouchable Diamond family,” I say bitterly.

“You’ve stolen loved ones away from others, Dad. Is this why you pushed me so hard to become a lawyer? Because if you ever got caught one day you would hope like hell that your daughter would defend you? Come on. Tell me. Why? How can you sleep at night? Breathe the same air as the very families of the wives, husbands, or even children whose loved ones you’ve killed?”

“It’s not like that, Calla.”

My father looks genuinely hurt. He should be.

“Then tell me how it is. Because like I told Cain, I’m on the good side of the law. The right side of the tracks. I can’t just stick out an olive branch to all of you. My entire life has been a lie. You’ve left me hanging all by myself on that small branch and today is the day it finally snaps and the ground I thought was underneath isn’t ground at all. It’s a cliff. And I keep falling, smacking my head into every hard rock along the way to the bottom.”