“You look like hell,” my deceitful mother says.
Her long, dark hair is pulled into a ponytail. Her loving eyes that look so much like mine send me an apologetic look. She’s in on this, too. Everyone is. Along with Manny, who’s standing off in the corner by the door.
“Yeah, well, what do you expect?” I ask through clenched teeth. “I came here for a divorce, not expecting to be carried away by a lying, cheating, and now criminal husband.”
I peer around my mother, who is now standing in front of me with eyes shooting bullets at my husband. I wonder if he steals those, too. I could use about four of them right now to shoot every one of these deceitful, mafia-loving people. Okay, not really. I could never shoot my parents.
“How long?” I demand.
It’s a simple question, really. One I deserve to know the answer to. I seem to be the only one left in the dark here by the way everyone is looking back and forth at each other as if they’re deciding which one of them should fill me in.
My parents sit down next to me. A fond memory flashes through my mind from when I was five years old. The three of us were sitting on the couch exactly like this while they told me our family dog was struck by a car and died. I cried like a baby, kicking and screaming for Hopper to come back. My dad held me for the longest time, stroking my hair and reassuring me that all dogs go to heaven and Hopper would be waiting there for me someday. I feel just like that little girl again. Except I’m not, I’m an adult. One who has been lied to about everything.
It’s my mom who speaks first. Her hand comes to rest on my knee.
“I’ve been connected to the Diamond family my entire life,” she begins, giving me a little squeeze. “My name was Cecily Abagail Diamond. Salvatore is my older brother.”
I stand and move over to the wall, pressing my back up against it and glaring at everyone in this room. I stop when I land on my mother.
“In other words, you’re a mafia princess,” I say with malice.
“I used to be. That is, until I met your father and fell in love.”
Her smile speaks the truth. Even though my parents would fight and argue when I was growing up, the love they had for each other was very evident, even as a young girl, I knew how much they loved each other.
“I don’t understand, then. Enlighten me here, Mom, or what about you, Dad? How do you fit into all of this?”
I hold my breath and wait for him to speak. The tension in the room coils around me.
“Calla, baby. I really think you need to sit down,” Cain declares.
“I don’t want to sit down. What I do want is the truth from all of you.”
I feel cheated, sad, and humiliated. This is a lot of information to incorporate. I’m so angry right now. With Cain, I had so many questions; with my parents, I feel like they have hidden too much from me since the day I was born. My brain at this minute doesn’t even know how to function. My dad gets up and puts his arm around me, tugging me into his chest.
“Honey, you’re shivering.”
“Please don’t touch me,” I whisper.
I duck out from under his arm and step away. Suddenly, the tension leaves him as if he’s come to some sort of decision. I watch it roll right off of his chest. His eyes turn glassy. My knees start to buckle. I stand firm, though. I’m not weak. I’m frightened and scared for my life; for my family’s lives.
“I’m a hitman,” he says emotionlessly, as if he hasn’t just crumbled my entire world. I’ve worshipped this man my entire life, and now he sits before me telling me he’s a murderer.
“Y…you kill people? Oh, my God! What’s wrong with you people? Don’t any of you care about how badly corrupted this world is? And dead center lies my family. The untouchable Diamond family,” I say bitterly.
“You’ve stolen loved ones away from others, Dad. Is this why you pushed me so hard to become a lawyer? Because if you ever got caught one day you would hope like hell that your daughter would defend you? Come on. Tell me. Why? How can you sleep at night? Breathe the same air as the very families of the wives, husbands, or even children whose loved ones you’ve killed?”
“It’s not like that, Calla.”
My father looks genuinely hurt. He should be.
“Then tell me how it is. Because like I told Cain, I’m on the good side of the law. The right side of the tracks. I can’t just stick out an olive branch to all of you. My entire life has been a lie. You’ve left me hanging all by myself on that small branch and today is the day it finally snaps and the ground I thought was underneath isn’t ground at all. It’s a cliff. And I keep falling, smacking my head into every hard rock along the way to the bottom.”
“Jesus. Fuck. Help me out here, Cecily?”
“No, Dad. This is between me and you. Father and daughter. I’m sure she has her own poison she needs to shove down my throat. I want to know how my own father could take someone else’s life?”
“I have no choice. I was born into this lifestyle just like your mom, just like Cain, and just like Manny over there. We don’t have choices like you do. You wouldn’t be here today if I had told them no.”
“You’re still not making sense to me. Were you threatened? Spit it out. The truth, all of it.”
I’m trying so hard to wrap my head around this. There’s no way I can. My body is looped so tensely right now.
“Our families go back a long way. My father was a trained assassin. He had me shooting targets from a mile away by the time I was ten years old. I’m not going to stand here and tell you what I do is right. What I will say is I sleep at night because I know you’re safe. Your mother and I kept this from you to protect you from this type of life. That’s why all those years ago, when you first brought up Cain’s name, I prohibited you from seeing him. I didn’t want my daughter anywhere near this kind of life. I never wanted it to touch you at all.”
I look at him suspiciously.
“So the feud between you and Cain’s dad was a lie, too?”
“That part is the truth. I hated that prick. He wanted your mother and let everyone know it. If it wasn’t for the fact that he was good at getting us the type of guns we needed, I would have killed him before someone else had the chance to. And then he hooked up with Cain’s mother and his obsession with Cecily stopped. Cain was born only a few months before you, and when two innocent little babies came into this world, I buried my hate for him. I don’t kill people just because I want to. I kill them because they’re scum. You don’t get a second chance when you fuck over Salvatore.”
I tilt my head and fix my eyes on Cain. He knows. He knows everything. And Manny, how does he fit into all of this? Is he a child of the mob as well? Four pairs of eyes are all looking at me. All of them gauging my reaction. Cain looks defeated. Manny looks like he feels sorry for me. My mother looks frightened, as if she might lose the one thing in her life she could never live without. And my dad, he’s standing there watching me intently, wondering if his little girl will ever be able to forgive him.
Suddenly the room starts to spin and the walls begin to cave in. My legs give out and my body crumples to the floor. I can’t breathe. My sweet, caring father is a cold-blooded murderer. My husband steals and sells guns. My mother is the sister to one of the world’s most notorious criminals.
And me? Who am I? The wife and daughter of people I once trusted. A fake, just like them. They all play a role in this. And whether any of them believe it or not, they have left me with no choice. Either I accept the lifestyle they lead, or I find my way out of here. Disappear, and never have contact with them again.