Page 55 of The Beast Who Begged Me

“No, it did not,” Caligula replies softly. “But he infected the rest of the Family with his hatred, too.” He looks down, thinking.

“We should go in,” I say, when he doesn’t continue. “Your mom was right, it’s fuckin’ freezing out here.”

“Oh, we’re not going back in there, Dami. We’re just going to slip out. I believe they call it an Irish goodbye—perhaps we can ask Finch D’Amato about it sometime.”

I let out a startled laugh. “Okay. Let’s ghost, then. God knows I’ve had enough fucking revelations for one night.”

I text Vito, then lead Caligula down the terrace stairs. By the time we reach the street, the car is pulling in. I keep my hand at his back until he’s inside.

It sticks in my head, though, from downtown back to the Upper West Side to the goddamn Morelli mansion. The idea that my father…

And his father…

If it’s true, we could have been raised together. Raised as brothers.

Christ.

Caligula breaks the silence a few minutes in. “I think I know when Nonna Mellie wrote it now. The letter.”

I look over at him.

“I’ve been wondering about it. Vincent was killed soon after I was born. The terrible things she apologizes for saying—that must have been in the first shock of hearing that my father had killed yours. Initially, she believed the lie. But by the time I was two, she’d discovered the truth.”

“How do you figure?”

“Because that’s when I know she moved out of my grandfather’s bedroom. They never shared one for as long as I can remember. She told everyone it was his snoring.”

The basement looms in my mind before I can stop it. I had no idea the Don and his wife did not share a bedroom. Years of obsessive research, and I got it wrong.

It’s not the only thing I got wrong.

“She must have written that letter right after she found out the truth,” Caligula is going on. “Then realized quickly she could never advise my father to leave. Nonno Lou had connections that reached far beyond New York. She always…” He trails off.

I find myself reaching for his hand. “Go on.” I don’t want all these thoughts festering inside him. Better to get it all out.

“She always hated him. I could tell, even though she never said a word against him. There was no question of divorce. So instead, she left his bed and never went back. It was the only protest available to her as a Don’s wife.”

“But why did your grandfather hang the murder on your dad in the first place?”

“So that no one would ever guess his real relationship with Vincent Orsini.” He looks out the window. “And my grandfather used me as leverage. To keep me alive, my father had to accept the blame.”

I let that wash over me. “I believe you,” I say slowly at last. “I do. But how do you know for sure?”

“Because I know how the mind of a Mob Boss works,” he says bitterly.

“You need to change that bandage,” Caligula says, after the Morelli house guards let us back into their fortress. D’Amato takes security as seriously as I do.

“I’ll get Rosa to do it in the morning,” I grunt, hanging up my coat. “It’s fine. Don’t wanna get her up for nothing.”

“I’ll do it for you,” Caligula says over his shoulder as we mount the stairs.

And despite everything that happened tonight, despite every terrible thing I’ve ever done to him, I can’t keep my eyes off his ass as he climbs up in front of me.

I want to refuse his help, but I’m too desperate to touch him again. He just looks so pretty with my hand around his throat…

I didn’t think I could hate myself harder than I already do, but I’m finding out I can.

I strip off my shirt in the bedroom and then, under the harder light of the connected bathroom, he peels off the bandage and the surgical tape, and I let him see the wound. His eyes go wide when he does.