Page 32 of Mafia Scars

“Do you?”

“Yeah. You’re Italian. It’s a pretty name. Amelia Rossi. I think…” She looked at me now. “I think I must have thought your father was non-Italian. That’s where the surname Taylor came from. But no.”

She was hurt. I could tell. Gigi was one of these pure-spirited people who wore their heart on their sleeve, showing it to the world. That’s what she was like. She didn’t deal with lies of any form.

“I’m sorry. I’m sorry that I lied to you this whole time.”

She shook her head. “You didn’t lie... to hurt me.”

“But I was a lie.” Déjà vu. This was the conversation I’d had with Luc weeks ago, when I found out who he really was. A man sent by my father to protect me, with the promise of getting the whole empire if he married me.

“You did what you had to. We all have to sometimes.”

I bit the inside of my lip to keep from crying. As understanding filled her features, relief washed over me.

“I wished that I’d told you sooner.”

“Me too, because I could have been a better friend when you needed me. Especially on the anniversary of your mother’s death.” Her eyes watered, but tears didn’t come. She reached out to take my hands into hers. “I understand that you needed to keep certain things from me, like who your father is, and who you were, but you could have told me about your mom. I guess, though, that I’m probably guilty too. So, I have to understand your reasons for not sharing.”

I’d been looking down at our hands joined together, but my gaze shot up to meet her eyes when she said that.

The water in her eyes spilled over and ran down her cheeks.

“What do you mean? What happened to you?”

“My…” She stopped and gazed off into the open space before us. She then pulled in a breath and continued. “My father wasn’t always the best. He left my mother when she was pregnant with me and tried to get back into our lives when I was four. She didn’t want to know him, but he still tried to get back in. Then he went to prison for manslaughter for ten years. It was actually an accident. He got into a fight trying to save a woman from being raped. He pushed the guy he was fighting with too hard, and the guy fell and knocked his head straight on an exposed nail. It killed him instantly. My father went down for that. We were the first thing he sought after when he came out. I was then fourteen, and I wanted to know him. My mother forbade me to see him. She never forgave him for leaving her when she was pregnant with me. He then promised he would show her how much he’d changed. He set up a home for troubled teens and devoted his time to helping people. That showed her he’d changed, plus I knew deep down she loved him but was scared of being hurt.”

I held my breath, holding on to her words.

“She gave him a chance a year later and one day, he was trying to help a boy who was desperate to get out of a gang he’d been drafted into. My father got caught up in the mess, and they killed him. They shot him. Just like that, he was gone. All those years gone just like that.”

Tears ran down my cheeks.

“I am so sorry. I am so sorry.” I gave her hands a squeeze. “Oh… Gigi.”

“It’s okay. It killed me for a long time, and I managed to deal with it with my focus on damn witchcraft, which I know probably is a load of bullshit. But it keeps me sane. It gives me something. I feel like my father’s spirit is near and always with me. That part I honestly feel. The rest may be crap. I guess too, now that I know what happened to you, it’s kind of comforting to think that maybe something, some force, put us together because we have a similar background.”

I nodded.

Since I couldn’t come up with anything that could refute two friends with similar pasts meeting, I had to agree.

“We were nearly the same ages when your father and my mother were taken from us.” Both by guns.

It was times like this when I reminded myself of all the reasons why I’d become a cop.

“Yes. I’m sorry your mother was taken from you in such a violent way.”

“I’m sorry your father was taken from you too. It breaks my heart to know that something like that could have happened to you.” It did, and I felt bad that I was only just finding out. “That shouldn’t have happened to you.”

“Nor you, Amelia. Nor you.”

I shook my head. “How did I not know all of that about you?”

“I guess we were both holding back on the things that caused us the deepest pain. I don’t talk about what happened to my father, ever. I was proud that he turned himself around, and even when he was in prison, it didn’t embarrass me. I knew he was there because he was trying to save someone. The pain, though, from his death is just too much to bear sometimes. Too much to understand. I still don’t think I can wrap my head around it. So, I don’t think about it.”

It was the same for me. “I still don’t know the full story of my mother’s death, and I’m scared to find out and find it makes less sense than what I know. I don’t know why my mother would have gone to the docks. I still have no idea why. She had no reason to be there.”

“She wouldn’t have been there for no reason, Amelia,” she surmised. “There’s some reasoning behind everything. It just sucks that you don’t know.”