Page 190 of Bad Bishop

We were going to baptize him in Naples next week, at the church where all of the Ferrante siblings had been baptized. This wasn’t a gesture of goodwill from me to Vello—I couldn’t care less what he wanted. But to Mama, who always searched for an excuse to return to Secondigliano. And while things were not perfect between us—probably never would be—I had assumed the big shoes of the nurturing adult in our relationship. Because I had managed to escape the prison that was the Ferrante family name, and all that it entailed, while she was still behind the gilded bars, watching as little by little her children slipped away from their father’s abusive hold.

I ran my fingers over his hair and smiled.

Oh,Tiernan.

My brilliant husband, who taught me how to shoot, how to dance, how to overcome my trauma, knew exactly how intelligent I was. And yet he foolishly thought I hadn’t figured out what Fintan’s disappearance meant.

I knew Gennaro was Fintan’s.

The hair gave it away, of course, but there were other telltales.

Those pale shamrock eyes.

The fair skin that promised to burn before tanning.

The slight cleft in his chin—another thing the siblings shared—that was impossible to miss.

I had noticed the impatience in Tiernan when he saw Enni for the first time. He’d wanted to go to Fintan. At the time, I had hoped he would do the right thing by me.

He did.

Fintan disappeared the same day I gave birth.

“Probably because of substance abuse,” Maggie and Tierney speculated. Tiernan said nothing. He made no effort to appear surprised or worried about his brother.

I was glad Alex took the blame for this. That Tiernan trusted him enough to ask him for it.

It was a secret I’d take to my grave. The fact I knew it was Fintan.

To protect Tiernan, Enni, myself, and our marriage.

In the meantime, I basked in my good luck. Gennaro was the spitting image of my husband.

As for Tiernan?

He’d never know that my memory returned to me sometime during the thirty-second week of my pregnancy.

I had been biding my time, waiting for him to find out about Fintan on his own.

And that if he hadn’t finished him…

I’d have done it myself.

THE END