Page 6 of Mafia Scars

Because this was a nightmare. It had to be.

I watched them leave. I watched Dad leave, and I knew something bad was going to happen.

Brutus looked at me, at least with sympathy, but it did nothing.

I retreated to my room that had become a prison for me and decided there was only one thing I could do now.

Leave.

But would he let me go? Would my father allow me to leave?

I was going to be leaving for New York in a few weeks anyway, and there wasn’t any talk of that not happening. Unless Millicent had told him, I wasn’t going, he wouldn’t know.

I couldn’t stay here, not after all that I’d seen.

My bags were packed by the time Dad returned in the early hours of the morning the next day.

I just had to plan how I’d leave. The sooner the better.

When I saw on the news three days later that Agent Peterson had been found in a lake with his body mutilated and his head missing, I threw up several times.

Dad had really killed him.

That was it. Soon had to be tonight.

I had money that would enable me to take care of myself. It was from my inheritance my grandparents had left me. Since they’d left it openly to me to use whenever I was ready, I didn’t have the trouble most had accessing an inheritance.

I had fifty thousand dollars. It would be more than enough. I’d actually wanted to use it to put towards opening the dance school I wanted to own by the time I turned thirty. The plan was to dance in a company until I was in my mid-twenties and then teach. I’d planned to go back to Julliard as a teacher. Do that for a few years. Then open my own dance school. Maybe some place nice and dreamlike, like in the village in Italy near my grandparents’ chateaux.

At least I was able to dream it, if not live it.

Right now, I didn’t know what was going to happen to me. I just needed to get out of here.

And I didn’t want a scene. I wasn’t going to say goodbye. I managed to give Millicent a lingering hug before she’d left earlier, but I never let on that it would probably be the last time I was going to see her. I thought, though, that she suspected that something was up with me because I ate her cookies and downed the milk.

I didn’t want to, but I did it to have something to remember her by.

Dad was in his office, and a few of his henchmen were around. I wanted to just slip out, but it would be difficult. I had my backpack and a carry-on case. That was me packing light.

I booked a flight to LA. Thinking it was the furthest I could get. I made reservations at the Pecan Guest House as it looked like a place I could stay for a while to gather my thoughts and think about the next plan of action, which I had no idea what that would be.

Seeing the passage to the door was clear, I walked fast to it, walking in a straight line and not looking back.

Large, clammy hands clamped down on mine the minute I turned the brass handle.

“Where are you going?” Dad asked, voice gravelly and filled with pain. I whipped my head around to see the expression on his face. “Amelia, where are you going?”

My breath caught in my throat, and I opened my mouth to speak, but no words came out. This was the first I’d seen him since I’d watched him shoot Agent Peterson, and then there was the news on TV.

I gazed into the large brown eyes on the father I’d loved so much and felt the impending doom of disappointment cascade through my heart.

It was all a lie. Everything was all a lie. He was a bad person, a person who killed people, and it was his fault why my mother was no longer with me.

“I’m leaving you. Leaving all of this,” I cried.

Shame registered on his face. “You can’t leave.” He panicked, tightening his grip on my arm to the point where it hurt.

“I’m leaving. I can’t stay here. You killed him, didn’t you?”