Page 91 of The Devil's Den

“Robby’s mom,” Matteo says as we make it to the office. “She’s with my brothers.”

“Your brothers?” Confusion settles over me as I pull open the drawer.

“Cavaleri. That’s me. Matteo Cavaleri.”

My mouth falls open. He’s never told me his full name, even when I had asked.

“I saw them,” he admits, and I witness the hurt in his eyes. “When I was out looking for you.”

“What? Oh my God!” I rummage through the drawer, my attention jumping between him and my mission to find my mother’s wallet. “Do you know where they live? Why they left you? Agnelo could’ve been lying about it all. I know you wanted to believe he wasn’t, that you had no one, but what if they never stopped looking for you? What if there’s more to the story?”

Matteo appears as though he’s considering what I’m saying, while I throw all the papers in the cabinet onto the floor. Finally, I see it—a rectangular brown wallet, the leather still soft beneath my fingertips.

My heart races as I stare down at it, Matteo’s footfalls inching closer, until he appears beside me.

“Open it,” he murmurs.

But I can’t.

“I’m afraid.” I swallow over the words, the trepidation churning in my stomach. “For so long, I had wondered about her. And now, I don’t know if I’m ready to know her, because she’ll never be my mother, Matteo.” Tears fill my eyes, so heavy they crash over me like a tidal wave. “She’ll never get to love me. She’ll…” I burst into a sob. “She’ll never know me.”

Instantly, he cups my face, kissing the very tip of my nose. “But you can know her. In some way, you’ll have her like you never did before. And believe me, I know how it is losing those you love. But she wanted you. She protected you.” He lifts my chin in between two fingers. “Open it, Aida. Tell me her name.”

Nerves roll down my body, and with a shaky hand, I pop the button, lifting the flap…and there she is.

Her smile is wide, her hair blonde and wavy. She’s exactly how I remember her in my dreams, as though I plucked her out and placed her within them.

“She’s so beautiful,” I whisper.

“She is. Like you.” His arm drapes around my shoulder and he tucks me into his side, kissing the top of my head as we both gaze at her.

“Cecilia Robinson,” I say. “Does that mean I’m Aida Robinson? Is that even my name or did he change it?”

“Let’s go ask him,” he tells me. “Then we’ll go and find my brothers to make sure Robby is really safe.”

“I hope he is. I hope that one of us was able to get their family back.” A sharp pang hits my chest. “Will you talk to them?” I look up at him, pulling away a fraction.

“I don’t know.” His gaze jumps to the floor. “Too much time has passed. I doubt they really care.”

“I bet you anything they still love you.” I trail my knuckles down his cheek, and his eyes return to mine. “Wishing every day that you were still alive. You have a chance, Matteo. Something I’ll never get with my mother.”

I grasp his hand, squeezing. “We’ll find Robby and then you’ll talk to them. For me.” But it’s for him. He needs this. His pain is still so fresh, even after all these years. He needs the truth about his life as much as I do.

He doesn’t say anything as I close the drawer, taking the wallet with me. But before we go back down, my attention swivels toward the baseball bat Agnelo has always kept here, right in the corner of the room. I’m sure he’s used it plenty of times, and not in the way it was intended.

“One second,” I say, going to grab it.

“What are you going to do with that?”

“I’m gonna kill him with it.”

He pauses, clasping the back of my neck in his palm, his eyes boring deeply. “I won’t stand in your way.”

We start for the basement, ready to end this once and for all. But I suddenly remember we can’t leave this horror of a place until we get everything I’ve kept hidden. “The pictures you made me, your photo of your family, we have to get them.”

“Shit, yeah.”

We hurry up the stairs, and once we’re in my room, he lifts the mattress as I snatch up all the pieces of us we held on to—the sketches of me he drew, my diary, the picture of his once happy family. It’s ours now. Agnelo can’t take it away.

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