Page 69 of Deception

The older woman approached on shaky legs, supported by the shopgirl, who had an arm around her.

When they reached me, I could see tears in her eyes. She didn’t stop until she was almost toe-to-toe with me. Reaching out, she cupped my face.

Santino made a move to rip her arm right off me, but I held up my hand. “No. It’s okay.”

She must have been in her seventies, and the last thing I wanted was to give her a heart attack.

“You’re Eliana’s boy.”

Her English was accented but clear. And I longed to find out if my suspicions of who she was were right. “I am. Did you know her?”

She started crying. “She was my sister. I’ve been waiting to see you again for a long time. I’m Moni, your aunt.”

I didn’t know my mother had any siblings. She had died when I was seven, and Maurizio never talked about her. It was as if she’d been erased from my life.

“My cousin sometimes sent me pictures of you. She told me what a great man you turned out to be. Nothing like your father. But she hasn’t been in touch in at least two years.”

I was reeling from the revelation of not only having an aunt but also another relative. “I didn’t know I had any family left.”

“Neither did Maurizio. But Mariana was smart. She married young, changed her name, moved away. And when her husband died and then Eliana, she knew she had to take care of the scared little boy my sister left behind. She always looked out for you as much as she could while that bastard was around.”

She spit on the ground when she said the last word.

Mariana taking care of me made so much more sense now. “He’s dead. And Mariana is safe in Georgetown.”

She made the sign of the cross, and a smile split her face. She had the same dimple in her right cheek as my mom. The same one I had. I remembered my mom very little, but I remembered that. I had one photo of her that I always kept close to me. It was of her holding me as a toddler, a big smile on her face.

“Did you…?” Moni trailed off, leaving the question unspoken.

I shook my head.

Nodding, she stepped back. “Doesn’t matter who it was. He deserved it. Most evil man I’ve ever met. When Eliana first went out with him, I told her he was bad news. But she wouldn’t listen. Told me she was in love.” A wistful look came over her face. “And in the end, she was too scared to leave.”

She turned to who I recognized must be her daughter. “Where are my manners? Ava, close up the shop and grab some cake.”

Moni led us to a table in the yard behind the house, surrounded by apple and cherry trees.

Santino took a reluctant seat, still not believing we were completely safe. It was hard to erase a lifetime of conditioning. I knew he wanted to poke around the house and then stand guard instead of eating cake and drinking lemonade.

But that was what we ended up doing. Even Santino couldn’t stop himself from eating two slices.

Ava kept stealing glances at him. Santino ignored her, but I knew he was aware of everything going on around him. He’d have noticed her attention straying to him.

I’d introduced him when we first sat down, but other than a nod at the women, he hadn’t acknowledged them.

Moni told us stories from when Mom was younger, careful to avoid any parts that included Maurizio.

“How did you end up here?” I couldn’t help but ask.

Moni’s eyes dimmed and she dropped her head. “You might as well know. Now that he’s gone, there’s nothing he can do from me telling you what he did.”

She clutched her rosemary that was around her neck, before dropping her hands on the arms of her chair. “I was visiting your mom after she’d been with Maurizio for about a year. It was her birthday and I wanted to surprise her.” She took a deep breath, her shoulders shaking. Ava reached out, putting her hands over Moni’s that was clutching the chair. “But Maurizio had sent her to Georgetown for a night so she could celebrate. He didn’t do it because he wanted to do something nice for her. He did to get her out of the way.”

Moni finally lifted her head, tears swimming in her eyes. “I walked in on one of his parties. Something he didn’t want his wife to ever find out, of course. He was so high, he could barely walk straight. When he saw me, he made me join…”

Her voice broke off, and she cleared her throat. I was unable to make a sound, knowing what my bastard father would have made her do. I felt sick to my stomach, bile rising up my throat.

Moni swallowed, then met my eyes. “Once they’d all passed out I got away. I knew I needed something to keep him from killing me. So I took important documents with me and made sure to snap a few photos. I divided up into safety deposit boxes and told him if anything happened to me, the information would go straight to the police and your mom. I also asked for a new identity and money if he wanted me to keep quiet.”

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