Page 77 of Damiano De Luca (The Five Syndicates)
“Your dad is sick! A psychopath!”
Gosh, the comparison wasn’t even close.
“Look what trust brought your dad. Does he know his wife schemes behind his back?”
Damian was crazy. Absolutely crazy. There was no way… My mom couldn’t be The Benefactor… But she hadn’t contacted me the entire time Papà exiled me to Devils Ridge. When I tried to talk about it later, tears always brimmed her eyes, and I could never bring myself to press harder.
And Maman was so connected for a Vitali first lady, wasn’t she? Friends with every wife and their powerful husbands. In a secret relationship with Vincent Romano. Married to the head of the freakin’ Vitali. I knew she was smart and held power, but she seemed fragile and unassuming.
What was it she’d told me all those years ago?
… Silent threats do not warn you, ma petite guerrière. They attack, lethal and unapologetic.
What if she was The Benefactor?
I shook my head. Why was I even considering Damian’s conspiracy theories? Maman lived sequestered in the Hamptons. She rarely left her home. How in the world could she be The Benefactor? She would never deceive me like that. She wasn’t that type of person. I refused to believe it. Hell, I’d recently just learned a benefactor even existed!
Damian dug around in a box. Silence slithered between us with the occasional ruffling from within the box.
I broke the silence first. “My mom is not The Benefactor. No way. Just no fucking way that would be possible.” Silence. “You believe me, right?”
I needed Damian to see reason, because Maman… she just couldn’t be The Benefactor. It made no sense. And me and Damian? This was our chance to make it. We couldn’t let our relationship slip by like last time.
Damian’s face told me he didn’t believe me, so I changed my line of reasoning. “My mom and dad never loved each other. It was all a farce. Us? We’re real.” Still, he kept digging, ignoring my words. I was shouting now, grasping at straws, at anything that would erase the past ten minutes. “I sacrificed my happiness for you, Damian! I sacrificed a happy future with you when I left Devils Ridge because I wanted you safe from your asshole father. It was the hardest thing I’ve ever done.”
I took a step closer, begging him to even look at me, which he didn’t bother to do. “So, you may have daddy issues, Damian, and that’s okay, but don’t you dare project that onto my mother, me, or our relationship.”
Swallowing back the anger that unhinged me, I lowered my voice. “Don’t you get what a big sacrifice leaving you was for me? I loved you, gave you my virginity, and left after your father threatened me.” Angelo was the enemy. Not Maman. I took another step toward Damian. My heart fractured with each second he ignored me. “Doesn’t that mean anything to you? Are you really that ungrateful?”
He ignored my words, pulled something out of the box, and showed it to me. A leather-bound book from the Vitali archives. The one my mom controlled. The one no one had access to without her help. Hell, Damian probably didn’t even know what he held.
Recognition lit up my face, followed by a truckload of Denial with a capital “D”.
He must have seen it, because his eyes narrowed, and disgust curled his lips. “What do you know? My dad was right about one thing.”
“What?” I asked out of reflex. I didn’t want to hear his answer. I didn’t want to hear any of this.
I trusted Maman.
She wasn’t The Benefactor.
Papà was the bad parent.
Damian stared me down, his voice as hollow as his eyes. “Love doesn’t exist.”
“He’s wrong. Your dad is wrong.” I shook my head. “And if you truly believe that love doesn’t exist, you’re wrong, too.” My mind raced, fracturing as I pictured my future without Damian. “Love exists. It’s real. We have it. You’ll never find what we have with anyone else. If you want to create a family without me for your De Luca throne, and I know you’ll need a family,
a farce is what you will settle for. Because you love me, Damian. Anyone else is just a lie.”
I waited for him to wake up.
To see the truth in my words.
He didn’t.
The greatest deception men suffer is from their own opinions.
Leonardo Da Vinci
