Page 77 of Dreadful

“I know what you are thinking.” Gio’s voice is hoarse.

My heart stops. “What do you mean?”

“This is not your fault.”

I swallow. “H-how did you know that’s what I was thinking?”

He sighs and stops rocking Tony, and I still, too. He brushes Tony’s cheek and speaks in a detached voice. I listen with bated breath, soaking in every word.

“Your mother used to bring you here when you were little. Do you remember?”

I nod. “You were the only ones I could think of when…when Antonella asked me where she should take me.”

“Your mother would bring you here whenever the mob showed up at your father’s butcher shop. You look just like her, you know. The early worry lines and everything. She loved you, but she hated the men your father worked for. They both knew he did it to protect you. He tried to protect you. Your mother tried to protect you. Antonella tried to protect you. We…we tried to protect you.”

Every name is another innocent death. And all for what? For Claudio Vincelli to sit in his house on the hill and lord over a false kingdom?

“We may have been yournonni, but you are our daughter. We always wanted a little girl, then you appeared on our doorstep. We have always tried to protect you, but we were not perfect. When you started your little list, Tony and I did not know what to do.”

My muscles are stone.

“Oh, yeah, we knew.” Gio chuckles wryly, answering my silent question. “You have been singing and humming that awful nursery rhyme since the day you came. They were the only words you said for the first couple of months until we fattened you up and convinced you we were here to stay. It wasn’t until Antonella died and you stopped singing ‘godmother’ that we realized your nursery rhyme was more morbid than we could’ve imagined. Then a few weeks ago, more notes disappeared from your song. We found out the Vincellis’ butler and maids had been fired, and that’s when we started putting it together.”

“You knew all this time and you didn’t say anything?” My chest constricts like a boa has coiled around my lungs.

Does he hate me? Does he blame me, too?

I blame myself, but I couldn’t bear it if Gio did, too. I have had so few in my life who loved me, cared for me, and were on my side. Losing TonyandGio? I wouldn’t come back from that.

“We knew you were up to something, but we weren’t sure what, exactly. We found costumes in your room that had nothing to do with your musicals. Your sketches have always been…disturbing, but they started looking more like plans than nightmares. We were worried, yes, but we…we…”

“You what?”

Grim intensity thins his lips. His eyes are still red and watery, but his conviction is clear in his hard-set jaw.

“We understood. What happened to you in that house…everyone who played a part in it deserves to pay. And now that they’re behind this, too—”

“I’m sorry, Gio—”

“It’s not your fault. It’s theirs.” A big inhale raises his chest, and he squeezes Tony tighter to keep him from falling from his lap. “I need to ask you a favor,nipotina mia.”

“Okay…”

He glances around, but even though the bakery is usually slammed by this time, no one has so much as peeked inside thanks to the drive-by. Once he decides the coast is clear, he still lowers his voice and switches our conversation back to Italian.

“How many are left?”

“How many—”

“In your song. How many are left?”

I bite my lip before answering. “Four.”

He nods once. “Don’t stop.”

“Gio—”

“No, we have never asked you for anything, and I hate that what I’m asking for is so big now. But I’m asking you for myself and for him right now.” His jaw tics and his medium-brown wrinkles furrow as he narrows his eyes at me. “Finish your list. Finish it for him. Finish it for me. Please. Thosefigli di puttanadon’t deserve the air you’ve let them breathe for so long. We knew you had all the evidence needed to take down every single person who walked into that hellhole, but we didn’t let you. We were too afraid for your safety to let you go after them in court.”