The twins burst out laughing, and my blood rushed to my cheeks. How dare they laugh at me when I was their prisoner? They kidnapped me—the bastards! I would pay them back for this.
Luca softened, and his smile became boyish and understanding. “Come on, Ari. Don’t you at least want to know the truth? Aren’t you even slightly curious? How do you explain that we know you and you don’t know us?”
My gaze skipped from one man to the next. What if they were right and my parents kept our past a secret from me all these years? What if the dream was real?
I swallowed hard, took a deep breath, and plunged in. “In the dream, I was living in a big mansion made of pale beige stone. The sun made it bright and warm, and it had huge grounds and fountains and walkways going everywhere.
Luca nodded. “That’s Archhurst. It’s my family estate outside of Boston.”
“Boston!” I gasped. “Did you bring me to Boston?”
“What else do you remember? Do you remember us carrying you around and doing everything with you?”
I looked away and ran my fingers through my hair. “I remember… three boys. They were…” My head shot up as the truth sank in. Two of those boys were dark, sturdy, and solid. The third had lighter brown hair and bright, sharp eyes like a hawk’s. “It can’t be!”
“What else?” Luca demanded. “Is there anything else?”
I shut my mouth with a click. I couldn’t tell them aboutthat. I couldn’t letthatpart be true.
“You remember something else, don’t you?” Luca prompted. “Tell us everything.”
I gulped down rising panic. I searched the room, but I couldn’t see beyond a ring of light shining down from directly above me. “I don’t remember anything else.”
“Don’t lie to me, Ari. We have as much right to know the truth as you do.”
My head shot up to stare at him. How did that voice command me at my very core to obey him?
He called me that name that only my closest friends and family called me. Did he really know me in ways I could barely remember?
Dominic’s voice boomed through the room and started me out of my skin. “Do you remember the murder?”
“Murder!” I screeched. “I don’t remember any murder. I don’t know anything about any murder! I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“She does remember,” Dante murmured. “She must have been there.”
“That makes sense,” Luca remarked. “We were all out at the gala when it happened. She wasn’t old enough to come, and when we got back, Matteo was gone, along with his family.”
“Liar!” I shrieked. “You’re lying! My father was never a mobster! My father is a good man! My father would never do any of the things you’re saying.”
“Your father killed my parents,” Dante snarled. “Matteo La Rosa turned over all Don Antonio’s books to the FBI and went undercover inside the family. My father, Lorenzo Luciano, found out what Matteo was doing and confronted him. My father threatened to take Matteo La Rosa before the Padrino for punishment, but my mother shot my father in the back to protect Matteo. They were having an affair, and she saved his life, but when she suggested they run away together to escape the family, Matteo shot her and left her dead body on top of my father’s. We found them there when we came home from the gala.”
Luca stood off to one side while I sat before the twins. Anyone with an eye in their head could see Dante was telling the truth.
I couldn’t escape this horror. My father—a cold-blooded killer? Was he playing an act with me all these years? Did I ever really know my own father?
The moment I thought that, I remembered the way he looked and spoke when he told me to pack my suitcase. He wasn’t the kind, soft-spoken accountant I always thought he was. He hid a dark side, but it came to the surface then.
My God, he really had been a mobster! Wasn’t that memory seared into my mind from my earliest childhood? I’d been dreaming about it ever since. Hadn’t I seen him shoot that woman after she saved his life?
How could the father I love do something like that? How could he do something so cruel, so selfish, so… so traitorous?
Did my mother know? Did she have a clue she was married to a monster? How could I ever go home again after this? How could I ever look my father in the eye?
Luca stepped in front of me. “Now you know why we bear no love for Matteo La Rosa. We’ve been hunting him for thirteen years, so before you start ranting and raving about us kidnapping you, remember that you being here is the only thing keeping your father alive.”
He let that sink in, and I trembled. I didn’t have to question. He meant every hard-hitting word. He wouldn’t say it if he didn’t mean it. I got that about him right away.
“If you don’t cooperate in everything, we’ll kill your father. That’s all there is to it. You have one chance to save your father’s life, and if you screw up once, he’s a dead man. Understand?”