Page 4 of The Pawn
“You look like her, but you have him in you too.”
“What do you mean you knew her before him?”
“I mean I met her first. After a few months, I introduced her to your father. I was the reason they crossed paths at all. He never told you any of that, did he? Of course he didn’t. Why would he?”
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“I suppose I can’t lay the blame entirely at Alaric’s door. She saw his power. His money. Saw what he could give her. I’m not even sure it was solely greed. She was young. Too young for either of us, truly. Naïve. She thought herself inlove with your father.” He shakes his head. “That wore off, although a little too late. By then, he’d put the first of his spawn in her belly.” I hear the contempt in his voice. See it in the curl of his lip. He clears his throat. “She never gave me a second thought. A little like you. Like your brother. Your father. Ungrateful bunch, the Morettis.”
“What the fuck are you talking about?” I ask against my better judgement.
“Do you know what this place is?”
“Of course I know.”
“I mean, do you know what this place is? Why your father chose it? It wasn’t random, do you know that? Why it’s…” he brushes soot off what was once a beautiful table with elegant marble pillars for legs. “Ash.”
I don’t answer him.
“I wonder if your brother knew,” he says more to himself than me. He shrugs a shoulder. “Oops, too late to ask him.”
I want to lunge at him, to knock him to the ground, but when I try to get up, dizziness has me sitting back down. “What the fuck is wrong with you?” I manage instead.
“She had told him she wanted to start lessons again. To play publicly again.”
I know my mother was a child protégé but even before she’d had us, she’d stopped giving concerts. We had a beautiful grand piano in the house where I remember watching her lose herself to pounding, heart wrenching music. She never played anything light or fun. Nothing for her children. Only the darkest for her. I remember the last year of her life she’d play less and less and when she did play, how hard it was to listen.
“Of course, your father was against it. Wanted to keepher all to himself. But he gave in to some extent, allowing her lessons.” He grins wide. “I knew her, though. I knew her better than she knew herself. This house,hishouse, Allegra, to your father, it was an abomination.”
He makes a gesture around the room, and I take in the burnt-out windows, the black walls, the charred remains of what was once a beautiful home. One that was bright. One that felt good the few times I came with my mother.
“The Maestro died in the fire. Burnt alive. Horrible death. At least he wasn’t alone. Well, I mean, she was dead by then, so technically he was alone I guess…” He makes a face. “But even before he died, your father took his gruesome revenge. He shared a similar punishment to your mother. Did you know that?”
He must see from my face that I didn’t. I knew the Maestro. I’d met him a few times. I’d liked him.
“By the time he died, he’d had all his fingers cut off. One by one. Like her.” I don’t even realize that I cover one hand with the other until Malek’s gaze moves there. “The worst punishment for a pianist. Even if he’d lived or she’d lived, well, let’s just say it wouldn’t have been a very full life. Although I do believe she wasn’t meant to die. He didn’t mean to kill her. Not out of love, of course. No, more that he hadn’t meant to kill heryet. He’d never forgive her for her betrayal, and he wasn’t through punishing her.”
“You don’t know anything.”
“I do. And you do. You know the truth. I know what you heard that day. When he came to get you both. I saw your face, Allegra. Even as you clung to him, to the murderer who butchered your mother. Who butchered you.”
I don’t respond. I can’t. He’s right. I did hear things. But no. I shake my head not for his benefit but for myown sanity. My own survival. It’s too much to take in otherwise. To process all at once. All this reality, this truth, confronting me at once.
He crosses to me in three long strides and before I can stop him, he picks up my hand with its missing finger. “I do wonder what was going through his head to order this.”
I stand and tug my hand away. “Did you kill him? Was it you?” I ask again, trying to focus on the one thing in this mess I can process without losing my mind.
“Does it really matter? After what he did to your mother? To you?”
“You don’t know anything,” I say again, shaking my head, but I know the truth. I know it. “Tell me if you killed him. Just tell me.”
“I will. But only if you tell me something first.” He tugs me toward himself, his grip hard. He was never so physical, not like an enforcer or a soldier.
I glare at him. “What?”
“Tell me that you know it was him. Your butcher father. Say you know it was him who killed her. It was him who did this to you. Because it was. And it was so easy. Just a whisper here, a whisper there.” He smiles to himself. “Say it, Allegra. Say you know that it was your father who gave the order to butcher your mother.”
“You killed him, didn’t you? You killed my father just like you killed Michael.”
