Page 47 of The Freedom in Captivity

I doubt that.

But I want to hear her out and listen to whatever tale she spins to get out of this mess. It’s bound to be a good one. I push her hand away from my chest, unwilling to let her feel any part of me that could indicate how her story affects me. That it’ll even affect me at all.

“Dad was protective, in weird ways. Yasmine, my sister, and I attended a private school our entire lives. Yasmine was fine with it, but after a while, I wanted out of there. Private schools are so…formal.” Her expression pinches. “Hated it. Not entirely sure why since it’s the life I grew up in but,” she shrugs a shoulder, “I did. It felt fake and that wasn’t me. So I begged my parents to let me attend public school and be like a regular teenager, despite my family constantly reminding me, we weren’t typical. My mother was, as you probably know, the daughter of an Italian mafia don that my father somehow managed to gain a connection with. Her family was very old-school, and they hated her decision when she allowed me to drop from private to public education. Dad and her fought for days over it. But Mom,” her tone turns wistful, her lips forming a barely-there smile, “wouldn’t hear of it. She didn’t care about anything other than my happiness. She enrolled me in the school of my choosing. She was a determined woman, and a great mother.”

I’ve never had a good familial relationship; Lorenzo and Caterina would be the closest thing I have to parents, and listening to how she speaks of her mother makes me jealous I never had a positive relationship like that growing up. Someone who’d do anything for the person they love.

“I chose a school that was far from home, on the other side of the city. Partly so no one would recognize me, and partly because it represented the opposite of everything my family was.”

My school. How different my past would have been if she chose to attend somewhere else.

“Dad was beside himself when I chose there of all places.”

Because it was underfunded and not in a great neighbourhood.

“Three days in, I met you.”

She blinks up at me, her smile soft and genuine as she recountsourhistory. Meanwhile, I’m not sure my internal organs recall their function, so I demand, “Skip this part. I was there. I know what happened.” I care about thewhyand theafter.

“After a few fantastic months with you, life changed. I could tell something was really bothering Dad. Something always seemed to be, actually.” Her gaze lowers, finding the wall beside us as she talks through the next part. “He was…erratic. Very angry.”

Which explains the bruises. Old hatred rises to the top again, which I quickly quell, shoving away the unwanted emotion.

“Life at home got worse when I started faking a lot of after-school projects and clubs in order to hang out with you for longer. Because every moment counted.” She drags her sharp nails up my arm, but I shrug her off. “Then Mom got sick. Lung cancer.” Her eyes lower, her entire countenance dropping. “She didn’t even smoke. That was the cruellest part.”

The early loss of De Falco’s first wife is well-known to the Corsettis but having not known his daughter wasmyRozelyn…The very one sitting in my bed, recounting her mother’s death.

Hate. Hate, hate, hate who you’ve become.It’s that chant that keeps my hands locked by my sides to resist from holding her as her mood plummets.

“There was nothing any doctor could do. We were waiting it out basically. It hit hard and fast, and school became my distraction. Mom wanted me to go. Dad obviously didn’t, but I was able to forget about my family issues when I was with you.” She looks up at me again, the base of her eyes red-rimmed. “For a few hours every day, I pretended to be fine.Youmade me fine.

“Then it got worse, and the doctors said she had mere days left.” Rozelyn’s lips press together, and her eyes squeeze shut. I count every second it takes before she reopens them—ten—and the pain has me ready to throw away every horrible thing I’ve thought about her, just to have her in my arms this one time.

“You seemed different that week too,” I admit. “I didn’t look close enough apparently.”

She throws me another sad smile, one tinged with old regrets, before speaking again. The protective feeling grows with her next words: “Two days after our breakup, Mom passed.”

I give her a moment to sort through her grief but then bring her back to a point she mentioned before her mother’s loss. “You continued coming to school when you were grieving. When you knew you’d only have days with her.”

“Ma lune.”The old nickname makes me jolt. “You were my everything, Flynn,” she murmurs. “I was an idiot, maybe, but you consumed me. Being with you and pretending all was well gave me something to focus on or else I’d be a mess.” Her tone immediately switches to bitterness when she continues, “Of course, not everyone understood that. Dad hated that I continued to go. The day I told you goodbye was less about Mom’s upcoming death and more because of what he did.

“The day before, he brought me into his office and pulled out a folder. It was your school file. He had your name and home address. Your father’s name. He knew your fucking grades. And then the pictures,” she shudders, “so many photos.” Her eyes flash to mine, naked and honest. “Of you, Flynn. Ofus. Dad wanted to know why I was insistent to go to school that week. I kept telling him it wasforher. She wanted me to be happy, and I was, but he didn’t believe me. He had pictures of us kissing outside, of holding hands in the hallway. Of you entering your house. He knew who you were, and threatened that if I didn’t withdraw from school and return to the life I was, as he put it, ‘abandoning,’ then he’d have you killed. He started using Mom to lay on the guilt, claiming I was turning away from her heritage. I didn’t know what to do, other than to obey him. Everything was a mess. My sister…me. I was…” She trails off, lowering her eyes to my chest so she doesn’t have to look me in the eye, but I can imagine the ending of her statement.

I was scared.

“I waited to the very end of the day because I was trying to cling tous. When the final bell rang, I felt sick. I had no choice but to leave you, and I know I said the nastiest things I could have.” Her voice drops to a near-whisper, pain laced in every word. “I’m aware of what I did, and it was on purpose, so you wouldn’t find a reason to look for me. I was terrified the promises we made to one another would drive you to comb Montreal for me. I’d die before letting my father harm you, so I did what I had to. In the months following, I learned who my father is, and everything he ever said to me made sense.”

I freeze, replaying her words. Not the stuff about us, but the hint of her father, because as much as I cling to everything regarding her and me, that’s not why she’s in my life this time around.

“Who my father is.”

Who’s your father, Rozelyn? What aren’t you saying?

“I’m sorry, Flynn,” she finishes, her nails scraping up my bare thigh until reaching the edge of my shorts. “I-I…I hated it.”

She’s lying.

She was protecting me.

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