Page 56 of Intrigue
“Do you know what I gave up for you?” His voice is unhinged, teetering between a sob and a scream. “Do you have any idea what I had to do?”
“You had to do?” My voice shakes. “What the hell are you talking about?”
Before he can answer, the front door bursts open.
Everything happens at once.
Three men in black suits rush and then Cassian is being ripped away from me. He thrashes, screaming obscenities as they drag him across the room. He thrashes, but they’restronger, forcing him to his knees. A sharp cry rips from his throat when one of them drives a fist into his gut.
I barely register the movement behind them before he steps forward.
My father.
The world stops. The blood drains from my face.
He looks at me with something that isn’t quite disappointment, but isn’t surprise, either. Like he’s known all along I’d end up here. Like he planned it.
“That’s enough theater for one night.” My father’s voice cuts through the chaos. He steps inside, immaculate in his tailored suit. “Hello, daughter.”
“What is this?” I demand, tasting copper.
He smiles, all predator. “The final act, cara mia. Where all the pieces come together. Starting with your precious Cassian, my gift to keep you distracted while I continued to work the Morettis over to my side. Did you enjoy falling in love with him? He played his part well. Amazing what a struggling artist will do for funding, isn’t it?”
The floor seems to tilt beneath me. “What?”
“Oh yes. Every ‘chance’ meeting, every shared moment... all orchestrated.”
“You’re lying.”
“Am I? Shall we discuss more lies? Like the story of your birth?” He pulls out a photo—old, creased—and tosses it at my feet. I pick it up, hands trembling. It’s Mom, young and smiling, with a man I don’t know. He’s got my nose, my jaw.
“That is Adriano Moretti, your real father.”
My stomach lurches. I shake my head, willing him to stop, to take it back, but he doesn’t. He steps closer, his presence suffocating, and tells me the truth.
The real truth.
I was never a Marconi.
“You see, cara mia,” my father continues, circling me like a shark, “you were never meant to exist. Your mother, Bianca, was already in love with another man long before her arranged marriage to me. That man? Adriano Moretti. A Moretti heir. They were together before and after her forced marriage, and you… you were the result of that affair. I mean I suspected. But he didn’t care, at first. After all, I married her for power, not love. And when she finally left me, taking you with her to be with Adriano, I saw it as treason and took you back.”
I feel sick. My hands shake at my sides. “You killed them.”
He tilts his head, unimpressed. “I did what was necessary. Your mother’s indiscretion with Adriano should have died with them. But you... you grew to look so much like them both.”
Rage burns through me. “That’s why you wanted me dead.” My voice is barely above a whisper. “Because I look like him. Because if the Morettis ever found out you were the one who killed Adriano—”
“They’d burn me to the ground,” he finishes easily. “Yes. And that’s exactly why I couldn’t allow you to live. I orchestrated another rival to take the fall for Adriano and your mother’s death. Then made it seem that your mother’s affair was with him and not Adriano. I actually made it seem like she was two timing, but that part wasn’t so hard since she was a whore anyways.”
He laughs before continuing.
“Then it all leads back to you being the product of that affair. I played the part of the heartbroken widower whose wife left him but couldn’t abandon an innocent child and took you in. Making it look like I didn’t really care that you weren’t mine but loved you anyways.
“Sadly, Adriano’s brother couldn’t do much when he died shortly after from drunk driving. Putting a dent in my plans. But the seed had already been sown. So, I had to wait for his stupid, reckless son to grow up. Do you know how hard it wasliving with you all those years? Hearing you call mey ‘dad’...it fucking irritated me. But I was determined to see it through. And thankfully, when you were both of age, he was stupid enough to fall for my vices. Little whispers here and there and he came to me of his own accord.”
The room spins. “The Morettis...”
“Don’t they know they’re trying to kill their own blood?” He laughs, a low, twisted sound. “It was the perfect plan all along. I could have ended you any time. All those years, watching you sleep, waiting. I could’ve slipped something into your food and just watched you choke on your own blood. I was so damn close. But I needed to let it simmer. I wanted to send one final ‘fuck you’ to your whore of a mother and her lover, both rotting in their graves. I wanted them to roll in their graves all this while watching they way I neglected you as a child, yes, but I also wanted them to suffer. To know that their betrayal would echo even in death. Killing you myself would’ve been too easy. No, I wanted them to see you grow up, to see you have a life. To see you fall in love. And then, I wanted your life to end at the hands of your own flesh and blood, the very ones who should protect you. It would have been the sweetest revenge, a beautiful tragedy. You’d have been the final brunt of their betrayal to me, and they’d have known every agonizing moment of it.”