Page 55 of The Leader

“How did you find out? Jazzy would have never told you.”

And wasn’t that what Antonio had been counting on for all these years? The silence of his granddaughters. In hindsight, it explained a lot. Why Jazzy was raised the way she was. Why she had so much more freedom than the other girls. And why Antonio didn’t put down the law for her, as was usual in their world. He felt too damn guilty—as he should.

“She didn’t. I found out from Mary’s records.”

His lips thinned. “I’ve banished Marco from the States.”

“Yet he came back.”

“He will not come back again. Not even after I’m gone. I told him who Jazzy married. He knows she is protected.”

“Not good enough. When you find a snake, you chop off its head.”

Antonio’s mouth tightened. “A man cannot enter heaven with the blood of his son on his hands. I’ve done a lot of things I’m not proud of. I have committed numerous crimes, but a child killer, I am not.”

“What about your granddaughters, who were also children back then? The ones that got bitten by the snake. You don’t let a snake slither away for it to come back and bite you one day. If you do that, sooner or later, someone else has to clean up your mess. Which, in this case, would be me.”

“It seems like you’ve already made up your mind. Why are you here, Detta?”

“I’m here to give you a heads-up that you will attend a funeral soon. Don’t get in my way. Also, if you start a war over this, know I’m ready. If you care about Jazzy at all, don’t make her attend your funeral before your time.”

Antonio narrowed his eyes but didn’t react.

Good. The time for talking was over anyway.

***

Later that night, as he once again stared at his wife’s back in bed, he contemplated his next move. Jazzy hadn’t broken down yet—though she had looked particularly anxious today. And even though a part of him was furious with her, another part of him was damn proud of her. Still, the discord in his marriage left him unsettled, making him feel unbalanced. But this wasn’t just about her safety, although that was his primary concern. It was also about trust.

Like you’ve trusted her?

Perhaps her refusing to trust him with her secret, he had no one to blame but himself. Why would she trust him if he hadn’t entrusted anything to her?

“The first week in the group home, I almost got raped,” he spoke, to her back. “I was ten years old and a scrawny kid back then. Two of the older boys held me down while the third one came up to me. Had it not been for Hector, I would have ended up with much worse than just a split lip and a scar on my eyebrow.” He was still for a moment. “What I’m trying to tell you is that I know what it feels like to be powerless. That day, that very moment after Hector kicked the crap out of those kids, I vowed that I would never be that vulnerable again. Not me, and not my brothers, nor anyone else I considered to be family. I will protect you from harm, even if protecting you means locking you up and you hating me. Because I can live with you hating me. I can’t live with the thought that I have failed to protect you, which is my most important job, as your husband.”

To protect and provide.

“That’s not the most important one,” she whispered. Before he could ask her what she meant by that, she finally started talking.

“I found him in Mary’s room.”

***

JAZZY

She could tell him now, because Marco had broken the deal. He came back to the States. From the moment Tess had delivered the news, she’d felt like a ten-year-old again, feeling Marco’s hot breath on her neck, sick to her stomach when she climbed on top of him. Beyond terrified, but determined to get him off of a crying Mary.

“Gio…he’s…he’s here.” She didn’t know how to start her story, not while all she could think of was that Marco was somewhere in San Francisco. Her grandfather had been right in his prediction. Marco had returned from his exile the second something happened to him—though she was pretty sure hernonnohad expected that something to be his death, instead of him getting hospitalized.

“I know.”

Her head snapped around. “You know? How can you know? I haven’t told you anything yet.”

“You’re the most stubborn woman I know, Jaz. I couldn’t wait for you to come to your senses and tell me who the threat was. I found out for myself today.”

“How did you—?”

“It doesn’t matter.”

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