Page 2 of In My Blood
As soon as I hit the road I threw my phone into the hands free cradle and hit the contact for the one and only person in my life that I could trust unquestioningly– my best friend and the closest thing I had to family other than my sisters – Dario. His Mum worked as our housekeeper and had done for years. He’d grown up with me and we’d been inseparable as kids. Now we were brothers in every way that mattered.
“How bad was it?” Dario asked the moment he answered my call. He’d been there when my father summoned me, and seen me exit the house with him moments later, so he knew I’d been going somewhere I didn’t want to be.
“Bad. So fucking bad!” I growled as I slammed my foot down. I was flouting every speed limit as I sped towards my sister. “Where are you?”
“Home. My Mum asked me to help her move some shit into the attic. What’s wrong?” I wasn’t surprised he already knew something was going on. We knew each other better than we knew anyone else – probably better than we knew ourselves. We’d had to learn to – just a part of the fight to survive the world we had both been born into.
“That fucker my Dad made me help Enzo grab last night…he just spilled his guts, told Dad that my dear mother had an affair years ago, and that Cara isn’t his!” I gasped. I was out of breath, myheart racing and my hands sweating beneath the leather of my steering wheel.
“What? Fuck!” Dario barked in shock.
“He’s gonna kill them, Dar. I have to get Cara somewhere safe, and my Mum is going to have to go with her.”
“Your Mum? Are you insane?”
“I know, but someone needs to take care of Cara until I can clean up this mess. It won’t be for long. I’ll sort something else out, but I need some time first,” I explained hurriedly.
“Do you think your Mum will even go?”
“I don’t know, but she doesn’t have much choice! Dad will torture and kill her if she doesn’t run now!” I snapped. I hated the woman, even though I knew the life she found herself in, and the way she turned out, weren’t necessarily her own fault.
Still, the last thing I wanted to do was trust her with Cara, but I didn’t have a choice right then. I had to get Cara away, and once I did I could come up with a better plan – one where Gia and I could be with her somewhere safe and hidden. Somewhere none of us would ever be found by our monster of a father. “I’m going to get Cara now, but I need you to get my Mum to leave the house quietly and fast. You have to get her out before Dad calls the security there at the house.”
“Jesus Christ, Rafe. You don’t want much, do you? You know she fucking hates me!” Dario sighed. And he was right. My mother had always hated Dario because she saw him as beneath her. He was the kid of the housekeeper, after all. To my mother Dario might as well have been a criminal. She called him names, and,when we were younger, she would tell me not to play with him because he was dirty. She’d hit him a few times when she was drunk too.
Dario never told his Mum because he was scared she’d leave the house and then he’d have to leave me there in that misery all alone. I was terrified of that too. So he’d put up with it all, and shrugged it off, even though I knew my mother’s words hurt him every time. That was until he turned fifteen and grew faster than a weed. Now he was taller than me and spent most of his spare time in the home gym or out running, boxing, or playing football. He was a giant of a man now and my mother dare not say ‘boo’ to him anymore.
“Please, Dar. I have to get Cara safe, and, right now, this is the only way I know to do it. I have no time. Dad will be on the rampage as soon as he exits that warehouse,” I begged.
“Where shall I meet you?” he asked with a groan in his voice.
“The private airfield. I’m calling in a favour.” I just had to hope it was enough for now, but part of me knew I could never keep Cara safe forever, not while my father still lived. He was ruthless, and he did not lose. But I couldn’t allow him to win this time. I would never allow him to hurt my sisters, and I would do whatever I had to in order to make sure of that. Whatever it took.
***
“Rafe? What are you doing here?” Louise asked the second she saw me walk into the music school. My sister had been coming here in secret for two years now. Louise had agreed to bring her twice a week without letting my father know, and Terza - our housekeeper and Dario’s Mum - took care of Gia while she did that.
The reason for the secrecy was that my father had flat out refused to pay for the lessons, which Cara had begged to attend. Even when I said I’d pay for them, he’d still put his foot down. His only intention for my sisters, once they were grown, was to marry them off in order to create or cement business connections. That was all he deemed they would be worthy of. He believed educating them any further than the knowledge which school gave them, was a waste.
Our parents had no interest in the girls schooling, or their lives in general for the most part. My father provided money to sustain them for his future use, and to keep up appearances, of course. My mother barely knew any of her children even existed, except when they got in her way.
So I was the one who attended parents evenings at Cara’s school, went to see her drama productions each year, and turned up at sports days. I knew her teachers and the other parents had to find it odd. I’d been a child myself when Cara started school, and I acted as the only parental figure in her life, but no one ever said anything. They wouldn’t dare to. People knew who the De Santis family were, and what they were capable of. They were terrified of doing anything that could invoke my father’s reputation for brutal violence.
So it was me who spoke with Cara’s music teacher when he requested a meeting. He had wanted me to understand the level of Cara’s musical abilities, because he felt they should be nurtured outside of school too. He told me that Cara had a real talent for music, picking up the reading of sheet music quickly once he started showing it to her. He’d started her on a keyboard and she had flown with it. So I had been determined to get her private lessons. Two years later and Cara could play the keyboard and the guitar, and her new passion was learning theflute. Her music teacher told me that Cara had a gift for music, and would likely come to a point where she’d be able to pick up any instrument and play it in the future.
“I need you to go back to the house and stay with Gia. If anyone asks you if you’ve seen Cara or I, you have to say no, okay?” I told Louise.
“What’s going on?”
“I don’t have time. You’ll find out when you get back. Please, just do as I ask. Cara’s life depends on it right now. Just stay with Gia and keep her safe until I come to find you,” I almost pleaded.
“Where are you taking Cara?” Louise asked as her eyes became glassy.
“Far away, where she’ll be safe. I have no other choice.” The words were hard to push out, the pain of what I had to do hitting me as I said it so plainly. I was sending my sister away with a mother she scarcely knew, who barely tolerated her, all so the only father she knew wouldn’t kill her. How could anyone’s life be that fucked up?
“Okay,” Louise nodded as she blinked back the tears and grabbed her bag from the chair she’d been sat in.
“Thank you.”
