AllFreeNovel
Share Us
But mom was struggling to reign in her rising fear, clasping her hands over her mouth like that could smother the urge to scream, and Pietro wasn’t anywhere
I read the letter again.
Found out—secret---they can’t know who I am—if the plan works—ifthe plan works?—
I felt like I would collapse.
Pietro was gone. This letter was real.
Pietro was in danger, and he was gone.I’m going somewhere dangerous, and I can’t take you with me.
What was the plan? Where had he gone, why was it dangerous, why could no one know who he was when he got there? Would he ever come back?
What had mom kept a secret, and why did it sound like it started all of this?
It was handwritten, and it was Pietro’s handwriting.
He did that stupid thing where he put a vertical line inside of every lowercase O, because otherwise no one could ever tell his O from his E, and the slant of the Ts and Ds were weirdly severe. I had that handwriting in every one of the 24 birthday cards he’d given me.
There was no mistaking his penmanship.
Mom took deep, heaving gasps, eyes closed, as she tried to pull herself together. As she tried to be the adult.
I was never any good at that, someone else always had to pick up the slack, putting aside their own needs to help me with every curveball that came my way. And here mom was, doing it again.
She pushed the fear, the grief and hysteria, back down inside of her, even though I was sure she wanted to let it all out, and I needed her too bad to tell her not to.
“Mary,” she croaked. “Ma-Mary.”
“Mom?” I asked, voice small. “What—what does he mean, he’s gone? What is he doing?”
Another sob half-broke out of my mom’s clenched teeth and she clenched her whole face until the moment passed. “He’s—I think he’s with the mafia.”
As I already said, I had never been very good at handling bad news.
When I was 12 and my bully had dumped her food tray on me I’d sobbed inconsolably for days, and when I got rejected from my first-choice college I’d thrown up. When dad died they’d had to hospitalize me for dehydration because I cried out all the water they tried to give me.
This time I felt the room spin and let my eyes roll into the back of my head.
I wasn’t unconscious for very long, according to mom, but I woke up on the couch with my mother looking near apoplectic beside me.
“Mary!” she gasped, squeezing my hand so hard it throbbed. “Oh my god, baby, don’tdothat to me—here, have some water. Does anything hurt?”
“No,” I drawled, smacking my lips as I came back.
“Are you sure you didn’t hit your head?” mom asked, bringing a cup to my face and peeling open my eye like she had the medical training to diagnose a brain bleed or whatever. I pulled back from her, taking the cup.
“I’m fine,” I said, pushing myself up.
The events of my last few waking minutes slowly leaked into my brain. God, Pietro was gone.
He was with themafia.
“Mom,” I said seriously, looking her in the eye with an uncharacteristic seriousness, “I need you to tell me everything.” She gulped.
“I never wanted you to know,” she said. “Either one of you.”
“Mom,” I said, firmer. Her lower lip wobbled.
