Page 30 of Mafia And Taken

I didn’t let her animosity distract my line of questioning. “What did you mean when you said the so-called burglary?”

She took a deep breath. “It was the day the intruders killed my mom and brother.”

“Go on,” I commanded.

She looked like she might refuse, but then she started speaking. “I had been in the pantry getting some more juice…I still remember the taste of that brand of apple juice—it had always been my favorite. I heard a commotion coming from the kitchen and my mom started screaming…and some foreign-sounding men were shouting at her.”

“Had you seen these men before?” I asked softly.

She pressed her hand to the cut I’d made to her shoulder. “No, never. I could hear my brother trying to talk to them. He was seventeen by then.”

She paused as if she was going back in her memory. “I wasn’t sure what they wanted with us, but I knew that it was safer to stay hidden in the pantry. I waited, but the shouting carried on and the men were demanding to know where my father was. Then I heard my father arrive home. There was more arguing and then I heard the gunshots.”

Her eyes filled with tears, and I saw her trying to swallow down the emotion. But she failed and the tears spilled down her cheeks. I wanted to comfort her, but I couldn’t. I needed her to keep on talking.

“It…it all went silent. Then I heard my father talking rapidly and giving orders. He said something about the Russians and the Bratva. I knew that those must have been the men who had broken into our home. I opened the pantry door and found him talking on the phone. I begged him to call for an ambulance for my mom and brother, but he said it was better that the doctor came. I remember crying and telling him I was scared.”

I watched as she gulped down her sobs.

“And you know what he said back to me? He said, ‘No one is ever going to hurt you, Cate’.”

She gave a harsh laugh. “But that wasn’t right, was it? Because the men who broke into my father’s house a few nights ago and took us to that warehouse, they did want to hurt me. They wanted to hurt my father. They wanted to kill us.”

She had been gazing down at the floor, but she looked up at me now as if coming out of the past. “Since moving out, I still go back to my father’s house once a week for dinner. That’s the only way he will leave me alone and let me live by myself—in exchange for me reporting in once a week. As he says, that way he can check up on me. The only other thing I know is that during these dinners, a couple of times I’ve heard him in his office on the speakerphone with someone who sounded like they were Russian. He had the same accent as the men who broke into our home and killed my mom and brother.”

“What were they talking about?”

“What does it matter?”

“We know he was involved with the Bratva, and we need whatever details you know.” I had her pushed up against the wall now and facing me, and I held the cold blade of the knife against her arm again.

“Screw you! I want to leave now,” she cried, although the shake in her voice betrayed her fear.

“No, not until you tell me what you know,” I growled.

“Fine, I’ll tell you so that I can leave and never have to see you again! I didn’t know if it was Fratellanza business or his own sideline.”

“But you suspected?”

“Yes, especially after my mom and brother were killed, and my father pretended it was a wrong time, wrong place sort of thing—a home burglary gone wrong. But I didn’t know if he was dealing with the Russians on official Fratellanza business or for himself.”

“You knew that he might be betraying the Fratellanza.” It was a statement, not a question because I knew the answer.

“I’m a Mafia daughter. I was brought up to be obedient and not question the men of our family. I could hardly ask my father if he was up to something. I was young and I was grieving. I’d witness my mom and brother’s murder.”

I saw her turning the thoughts over in her mind. “You said my father is on life support and may not survive. I know you want him to survive for at least a short time so that he can give you all the information you need. And then you’ll kill him.”

I didn’t say anything. We both knew how this would turn out.

“If I knew the details, I’d tell you now myself so that we could just switch the life support off already. I know you’re only keeping my father alive in the hope that he will tell you what went on with the Bratva. But I just want to see him dead for what he did to my mom and brother. He killed them. And he killed my childhood. If I had any evidence, I would give it to you right now so that you could put the bullet in his head sooner. He doesn’t deserve to live after what he’s done.”

The grief and anger were pouring out of her, and she wasn’t done yet.

“You used me.” Her anger turned to me now. “I thought that maybe you liked me, but you’ve been playing me all along. I wish you’d just done what you planned to do that first day when you brought me into your torture room instead of playing all these messed up mind games.”

I wanted to tell her that they weren’t just mind games. But I could see that she hated me.

She pulled away from me, although I could see she was wobbly on her feet. “If I’m well enough to torture, then I’m well enough to go home.”

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