Twisted Bond by SR Jones
Chapter Ten
Amelia
Damen gestures between Maya and myself with his finger. “You can do the dress stuff later.”
“Dress stuff… Way to condescend, darling.” Maya’s words have a tiny edge to them, but Damen doesn’t take the bait.
“We do need to talk,” he reiterates firmly.
Maya sighs and turns to Janey. “Rain check? Maybe tomorrow morning?”
“Sure,” she says.
What do they want to talk to us about? Damen’s face has grown serious as has Gio’s.
My stomach squirms. I can guess what they want to talk about, and I don't feel ready yet for it to come up, but with them leaving in a day or so, I imagine it’s now or never.
The other guests take their cue and begin to file out of the room. I notice that Marcello gallantly offers to escort Janey to her room. The sleaze.
Finally, it's just myself, Giovanni, Damen, and Maya. Giovanni pulls his chair closer and takes my right hand in both of his, holding it on his lap as his thumb strokes the skin on the inside of my wrist. It's a tender gesture, which makes me hope perhaps one day he will be more openly affectionate with me, the way Damen is with Maya.
“Amelia…” Gio sighs. Then he falls silent.
I wait for him to continue, but he shoots a look at Damen before looking back at me and then glancing at the tabletop. This is not like the Giovanni I know. Just how bad is what he has to tell me?
“Do you mind?” Damen’s deep bass tones rumble across the table.
“No, go ahead. It seems that I'm not very good at the moment at explaining anything.” Gio shakes his head at himself and gives my hand a quick squeeze.
“We wanted to talk to you both together,” Damen begins. “There's more than one threat facing us all at the moment. As you both know, we believe that what happened to the Swedish tourists was purposefully orchestrated by a fraction of a group called the Starz Allianz. Stamatis, myself, and Alesso are going to be dealing with those fuckers,” he snarls. “It doesn't mean that the threat has passed, though, or that they won't try anything else. We think the reason they targeted this area is because Giovanni helped a faction of their organization, and one they're fighting against. While we can try to undercut their operation, and hopefully ensure that they are not a threat going forward, it won't be immediate.”
“For that reason, Amelia, you'll start to see increased security around the building.” Giovanni seems to have finally found his voice. This is not what I expected, and I wonder if they're going to talk about my mother at all. “It also means that it's not really safe for you to be out and about alone. I know you hate having bodyguards with you, so I thought if you got to pick your own, and I can even hire women for you if you prefer, it might help. This won't be forever, but in the meantime, we need to be extremely careful.”
I wonder if this curtailment of freedom also extends to himself, but then I remember that I hardly ever see Giovanni without at least two of his goons with him, so he already has armed protection wherever he goes, unless it is in the village.
“The other situation that's worrying me is that you have some important things of yours at your grandmother’s house. The woman cannot be trusted, and I'll explain more in a moment. Some of what I'm going to tell you, Amelia, will be difficult for you to hear, but I think it's important you know everything we know.”
Damen shoots me a sympathetic look as he gives a brief nod of his head.
Oh, it’s going to be bad.
“Here's the thing. I need to find a way of getting your papers, passport, and anything else important from your grandmother's house. And then I need you to tell me what the most important things are you have in your father’s house. I don't want anything of yours that's personal, or important to building your identity, to fall into the wrong hands.”
I flick my gaze between them both and reach for the wine, pouring myself a hefty glass before taking a large sip. The wine I drank at dinner was white, but this is red, and it has a nice velvety consistency. It warms my stomach soothingly and calms some of the nerves dancing there.
“Wait a minute, are you telling me that you think my grandmother is so depraved that she'd have something to do with Polish gangsters?” I laugh at that because I can't help it. Grandmother might be a horrible person, but she's the world's worst snob. I can't see her having anything to do with guys in a gang.
“I think your grandmother's depraved enough for a lot of things,” Giovanni says seriously. “The issue isn't whether she will directly be involved with anything the Polish guys are doing. The issue is who she might speak to who would act as a go-between. We already know that she's in touch with Doctor Rosendale, and he's hardly a paragon of virtue. It’s probably nothing that you need to worry about, but until you have everything here with you that matters to you, I won't rest.”
“How are we going to get them back without me having to return to America and putting myself in danger?” I ask.
“I'm going to send Matteo. He can go to your father's house and get everything that you ask him to; all I need you to do is make a list. Your grandmother's house, Matteo will sort that out too.”
“He won't hurt her, will he?”
Giovanni narrows his eyes as he glares at me. His jaw tightens as a small muscle tics along the side. “Of course, he won't hurt her. What do you take me for? I'm hardly in the business of beating up octogenarians. He'll simply let himself into the house when she's not around. Hopefully, because it isn’t too long since you levelled that asylum to the ground, your grandmother won’t have done anything with your few possessions yet. It's very unlikely that either she or Doctor Rosendale even know that you're out of the country. She probably thinks that at some point you’ll go slinking back to her.”
“In fact, her thinking that wouldn't be such a bad thing at all, would it?” Damen says as he raises one brow.
“What are you thinking?” Giovanni asks.
“We could send a message to the grandmother, one that I can easily make look like it originated in America, and as long as Amelia writes it in her own words, so that it looks authentic to Agnes we can make her think that her granddaughter is coming home.”
“I like it,” Giovanni says. “It buys us a little time until Matteo can get in there and gather everything he needs. It also means Doctor Rosendale and Agnes will be busy focusing their attentions on looking for Amelia in America. I'm pretty sure they’ve hired investigators by now. Doctor Rosendale won't be a problem for much longer,” Giovanni tells me.
Oh God, it sounds as if they're going to do something dramatic, like take the man out.
“Damen here has uncovered some more rather, shall we say, seedy secrets about the man, and his further crimes, which he’s forwarded to the relevant authorities in America.”
“Doctor Rosendale will find that he won't be opening any new institutions going forward,” Damen says with a deep chuckle. “In fact, he's probably going to find himself institutionalized. Except, the place he will be going will have bars on the doors.”
“I don't think most prisons these days do have bars on the doors, not even in America.” Maya stares thoughtfully at the tablecloth as she strokes one finger over it.
Damen stares at his wife for a long beat and then shakes his head as the corner of his mouth tips up again in that smile. I giggle softly to myself because trust Maya to break the tension and bring a bit of light relief, even though unintended.
“Okay, boys,” I say. “Let's stop beating about the bush. Exactly what is it you found out about my grandmother and my mother?”
Gio lets go of my hand for a moment, cool air brushing over the skin that had become warm and slightly clammy. He stalks to the far corner of the room where there's a small wet bar and pours drinks into two glasses. He takes one over to Damen and sets the other in front of his seat.
I'm about to say something when he journeys back to the wet bar again and holds up a couple of decanters.
“Whiskey, brandy, vodka—take your pick.”
I choose vodka with orange, and Maya takes a vodka with coke. Gio makes the drinks, adding ice from a small bucket on the side, and carries them over to us. He hands me mine, and I swirl it around in front of me, the cubes clinking against the glass as I watch the liquid swirl around them.
I take a large sip of the liquid and enjoy the burn, which is much stronger than that from the wine. Giovanni hasn't put much orange in this at all. In fact, I'd say it’s seventy percent vodka and around thirty percent juice.
“Amelia, what you're about to learn is going to hurt a lot, but I think you deserve to know. Damen has unearthed evidence which points very strongly to your mother being murdered.”
The words hit me with the force of a sledgehammer, taking me by surprise completely as I struggle to get air into my lungs. I was expecting this, wasn't I? This was exactly what I believed they were going to tell me, so why the shock?
I blink at Giovanni a couple of times and feel my face starting to burn.
“We're not sure how involved your father was with things.” Damen taps his index finger on the table as he speaks. “He definitely knew that your mother had been committed against best medical practice, but I'm not convinced that he was aware of her murder. I think your grandmother did that all by herself. Well,” he corrects himself, “with the help of the odious Doctor Rosendale. Unfortunately, we can't prove anything because neither of them was stupid enough to put their crime onto paper, but Doctor Rosendale has done more than enough to spend quite some time as a guest at a federal prison.”
Giovanni takes hold of my hand again and does that thing with his thumb, which I find soothing and grounding. “We could probably go after your grandmother too, you know?”
I pick up the glass, swirl, tip some of its contents past my lips, and swallow. I consider what he's saying. Part of me loathes my grandmother so much right now that doing what he suggests would feel cathartic. It would also be justice, because if what these men are saying is correct, my grandmother took my mother's life, and she should pay for that. However, she's also very old and frail. Right in this moment, though, I'm leaning a little bit more toward the let's prosecute my grandmother side of the fence.
“If we pursued this by legal means,” Giovanni says, “it will mean your mother’s private life being hung out to dry.”
I'm not exactly sure what he’s getting at. I assumed the moment I'd realized that my mother had been institutionalized, not only against her will but against all legal and medical rules, that she wasn't the person my grandmother had painted her to be. I know my mother could be wild while I was growing up because I'd seen it for myself, but I came to believe the lurid tales were nothing more than that—made up stories.
“It seems that your mother was having an affair,” Damen tells me. “We think from everything we've learned that she was in love and about to leave your father, which is what sent your grandmother into a downward spiral.”
I know my grandmother spoiled my father rotten, but I find it hard to believe that she would care enough about my mother to bother whether she was with Father or not.
“I can see that you're kind of lost,” Giovanni says. “I don't think it was about your mother as such, Amelia. In fact, I think what your grandmother did was all about you.”
Me?
I look at the faces around the table and try to take in what he's telling me. It makes no sense.
“Your mother had fallen in love, and she was going to leave. She also loved you, though. Your mother wouldn't have left you behind, and I think she was planning to take you to get out of there. You know how your father recently passed of cancer?”
I nod numbly.
“It wasn't the first time he had the disease. The first bout he had was not long after you were born. It was successfully treated, but both the cancer and the treatment left him infertile. As you know, your aunt Jennifer died when she was a young girl, and it meant that you were the last person who could be the heir to the family fortune and the estate. Things weren't running as smoothly as they should, and your father had made many bad decisions. I think your grandmother was terrified that if your mother took you, and your father kept on the way he was, then the family would lose everything. Imagine it from her point of view. No heir, and no one to carry on the family line. And then, now you have Charles frittering the fortune away on disastrous business adventure after disastrous business adventure. Your grandmother was the one who came up with the idea that you would marry someone like Jeremy. I think your father's greatest sin was probably that he was too weak to stand up to his mother. So, you see, Amelia, everything that happened was all about keeping you in the family, and then making sure that you married well and could save the estate.”
Some of what I've been told is exactly what I had expected, but some of it isn't. The idea of it all being about me and keeping me within the family line makes me sick to my stomach. I feel as if I'm personally responsible for my mother’s death. I ponder what Giovanni says about my father being too weak, and he's probably right. He was always strict with me, but then it's not exactly a sign of strength being firm with a small child.
A memory scratches at the back of my mind, much like a tickle at the back of one’s throat when getting a cold. It’s something my father said to me.
It can't all be for nothing.
Oh my God. I don't think Damen and Gio are correct. I think my father probably did have something to do with Mother's murder, or at least, he knew about it. Those words had never made sense to me, and now they do, with horrifying clarity.
Picking up my glass, I down the rest of the drink in one go.
“Woah, calm down, Amelia. Take it easy. You don't want to make yourself sick.” Giovanni takes the glass from me and moves it away, despite it now being empty.
I need to be alone. I don't know what I'm feeling, or thinking, and I need time to digest this. I push away from the table, and my chair falls over behind me with a clatter onto the floor.
Giovanni stands too, but I hold my hand up to him. “No,” I tell him. “I need some time. I'll be okay. I'm just going to our room, but please give me some time.”
I walk unsteadily to the door, feeling unreal and anchorless. It’s as if the ground beneath me isn't solid anymore. As if I'm walking on a ship. Of course, that could be the vodka as well.
I race upstairs to the bedroom, throw open the door, and go to the bag that I left here when I ran for America. I unzip it and rummage around inside desperately until I find what I'm looking for.
Maggie May.
I pull the doll into my arms, sniffing her hair and loving the familiar scent of her. Tears stream down my cheeks as I carry her to the bed and curl up on my side, holding her to me tight.
They killed my mother.