“You’re pure evil.” He was discounting my love for my husband. Telling me it was an elaborately orchestrated plan. He was wrong. I fell in love with Miller slowly, with a broken heart. And Miller healed it. He fixed me.
“You’re welcome for the past 16 years of happiness. How could someone evil have given you such a wonderful gift?”
“You didn’t give me that gift. Miller did. Jacob did.”
“Is that my grandson’s name? Jacob?” He smiled. “When can I meet him?”
“You must be joking.”
My father slowly shook his head.
“Never. You can never meet my son.”
“You can’t keep me from him.”
“Damn right I can.”
“Language.”
Okay.I’d had enough. I lifted my gun back up, my knuckles aching as I gripped the handle. I shouldn’t have punched him. I should have just shot him. He was doing what I’d feared. Twisting everything. Making my memories hazy.
He held up his hands like he was finally scared of the gun. “Angel, I’m truly sorry if the last 16 years weren’t wonderful. You looked happy. I was happy that you were happy. I would have interfered if I thought you needed it.”
“If you knew I was happy then why’d you take it away from me? Why did you kill Miller?”Why?
“I didn’t. The bomb was inyourcar, Brooklyn. And I’d never do anything to hurt you. Yes, I’ve made mistakes in my past. And I can’t undo them. But I would never do anything to hurt you now. You’re my angel. You saved me. You know I wouldn’t hurt you.”
He was entirely full of shit. But the bomb was inmycar. Not Miller’s. And that had been bothering me for weeks. Why had it been in my car? Why? I only needed one answer from him. “So if you didn’t put the bomb in my car, who did?”
“There’s been a little unrest with the families. We can get into more details about that when you start working with me. Soon this whole empire will be in your hands.”
He was delusional.
“But there was a disagreement. A pretty big one. The Locatellis want me out.”
None of that meant anything to me. “Okay…”
“I was being careful when I sent the photographer to your house. I swear it. But…maybe I got a little greedy with wanting pictures of my grandchild. He’s growing so fast. And…someone must have followed the photographer. I didn’t know it until theexplosion. But it had the Locatelli signature all over the bomb. They were trying to hurt me by hurting you. They knew you were my one and only weakness. And they wanted me to know they were behind it.”
Hurt him by hurting me? They hadn’t just hurt me. They’d taken Miller away from me. They’d stolen the love of my life.
“I’m sorry,” my father said. “Truly I am.”
He was sorry? He’d led the murderer right to my doorstep.
“I had my guy over there right away,” my dad said. “He took care of everything. Worked with local law enforcement to smooth it all over so that the public would think it was just a car issue. Forensics was taking forever to identify who was in the car though. When I heard that all three of you were missing, I was worried sick that I’d lost you.” There were tears in his eyes.
I didn’t know what to say. It was all lies…right? But my dad sounded sincerely upset about the idea of losing me. I took a deep breath. I’d come here for a reason. And now he was messing with my head.
“I’m so glad you and Jacob are okay. And I’m sorry about Miller. I could tell how much you loved him.”
I opened my mouth and then closed it again.
“And as for revenge…” he looked down at the gun. “There’s no need for that. It’s already been taken care of.”
“What?”
“Remember Poppy? Your cousin? You met her at Thanksgiving.”
