Page 83 of Brutal Husband

I’m defending a man who abandoned me and our baby, and I don’t know why. Every day I spend without him is even more painful than the days I spent with his cruel brother. I picture Nero as a little boy, missing his other half that he didn’t even know was real. Lost and lied to, and longing for more. How can a man as shattered as him ever find peace?

A car I don’t recognize turns onto the street. I watch it idly, the baby boutique bag clutched in my hand and my heart full of sadness.

The car pulls up next to me, and Nero gets out.

I stare at him in shock, my feet rooted to the spot. My husband looks a mess, with a bloodied lip and untidy hair. My husband has come back. My heart is doing somersaults. Should I be celebrating, or should I be afraid for him because the police are going to arrest him?

He gazes at me intently for a moment, drinking in the sight of me. Then he opens the back seat, gathers something in his arms, and turns back to me.

I drop the bag from nerveless fingers, and it falls to the ground.

Behind me, Annie screams, and she breaks into a run.

24

Nero

The girl is so thin that she barely weighs anything in my arms. Her mother is sobbing as she takes her daughter from me and sinks down onto the ground with her.

She rocks Harriet back and forth as tears run down her face. “I knew you would come home. I knew you would, baby girl. I’ve waited night and day for you.”

Rieta is staring at me in shock, tendrils of hair blowing against her parted lips. She looks more beautiful than ever. Her pregnancy is making her glow, and maybe I’m just so starved for my woman that I can’t get enough of her.

Annie looks up at me. “How did you find her? Where?”

That’s a long story that I suppose I’ll have to tell the police. No doubt they’ll be angry and suspicious that I went off on my own to track Harriet down instead of turning over what I knew about the disappearance to them. I had to do it myself because it required me to impersonate my brother, and because Harriet was so well hidden that I don’t think the police would have beenable to get to her. The conditions in which she was being kept were horrendous. There were a handful of other children as well. They were taken to a hospital by men I can trust, but I wanted to bring Harriet home myself.

“She was in a bad place. I tracked her down through my brother’s contacts.”

Just two sentences to describe a horrific process. I located men who knew me before I knew Luca, and we worked day and night to track down the right people who knew my brother, Costa, and men like them, and persuaded them to tell us what they knew. Persuading them was a violent, blood-soaked process, but it got us the answers we sought.

Harriet reaches out of the blanket and grasps her mother’s hand. She’s been drugged, and she’s lost weight, but I can tell she’s a fighter. She’s going to be all right. When she asked where I was taking her, I told her I was taking her home, and she replied she was glad because her mom would be worried. After all she’s been through, she was most concerned that her mom was upset.

I know I look like him, but I’m not the man who took you,I assured her. I was surprised Harriet didn’t take one look at me and start screaming.

I know you’re not. Your eyes aren’t dead like his. Did he sometimes pretend to be Mrs. Lombardi’s husband? I saw him around, and I didn’t like him very much.

Yes, sweetheart. He did. After a while, I didn’t like him either.

“Where’s your brother now?” Annie asks.

“He’s dead.”

She stares at me, perplexed. “But why did you do this? You should have gone to the police.”

I look at Rieta. Only Rieta. “I had to make up for the things my brother has done.”

Will she understand why I had to abandon her yet again to make things right? I meant what I said in that note. I know I don’t deserve her forgiveness for any of this.

Annie’s expression turns cold. “I think you’re lying to me. I think you were afraid the police were going to find out you had something to do with this.”

“Mom, no.”

The voice is so quiet that I almost don’t hear Harriet.

Annie cups her face. “Don’t try to talk, baby. I’m going to get you inside.”

But Harriet won’t be silenced. “Nero didn’t do anything wrong. It was all Luca.”

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