Page 76 of Bad for You

“It’s best for you to know this and nothing else.”

“That’s not fair,” I spit, shaking my head. “You give me snippets of information and expect that to be enough.”

“I’m doing this to protect you,” she replies sympathetically. “Your mother doesn’t want to see you. But that doesn’t mean she doesn’t love you. We are doing this to protect you.”

“Protect me?” I exclaim. “From what?”

So help me God, if Gianna doesn’t explain, I’ll tear this house to the ground.

“From the man who is hunting her. His name is Aldo Cattaneo.”

And just like that, my purpose in this entire game is finally revealed.

“H-he came to the orphanage. He was going to adopt me, but you did first. You knew he came?”

Gianna nods. “Your mother is still in contact with the sisters at the orphanage. They told her about Aldo. She didn’t come herself because she is in hiding. From him.”

I don’t know what to say or think because this doesn’t make sense.

“What did she do to him?”

“She stole from him.”

“What did she steal?”

“His heart,” she finally reveals. “A lover scorned is a dangerous thing, and someone like Aldo—the most powerful drug dealer in all of the East Coast—that makes him lethal. A man like Aldo has everything he wants, and if he doesn’t, he buys it, but he could never buy your mother.

“She left you on those steps to protect you as she had you in secret. If anyone were to find out you existed, they would exploit you. Aldo would use you to smoke out your mother because he’s been looking for her for years.”

“None of this makes any sense,” I confess, stunned beyond words. “Why have you trained me the way you have all these years? And why tell me this now?”

Gianna purses her lips as if weighing up whether she should share more secrets. “Because it’s simple—you kill Aldo, you get your mother back. I see I cannot hide the truth from you any longer. You will eventually seek her out. So I would rather tell you than you hurt yourself trying.”

I slump onto the end of the bed, fearful my legs won’t hold me up. “This entire time, you were training me for this?”

Gianna nods, sitting beside me. I don’t think she’s ever been this close to me before, and it makes sense. She never adopted me because she wanted a child. She did so as a favor to a friend. If this doesn’t prove Gianna’s loyalty, then I don’t know what does.

This explains why she never treated me as a daughter, and that’s because I wasn’t.

I was someone else’s.

“But getting to Aldo won’t be easy. He’s never alone. He welcomes the strays and feeds them; he cares for them and earns their trust, but in the end, it’s all for his own gain.”

Although my memory of him is hazy, I don’t remember getting that feeling from him. I thought he was kind. But I guess this correlates with what Gianna is saying.

Aldo is a predator, and a smart one at that.

But there isn’t a question about it; Aldo must die, and he must die by my hand.

“Tell me what I have to do.”

Gianna smiles and gently brushes the hair from my cheek. A foreign gesture of love, one which she has never done before.

“What have I taught you about love?”

“Lovemakes you weak. Love will be the death of you,” I reply, thinking back to the night all those years ago when Gianna taught Lenny and me a very valuable lesson.

I didn’t see it then. But now, I do.

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