Page 54 of Tito

He kept shaking his head. “I cannot—”

“—say. Yes, yes.” I growled. “All these lies. The secrets.”

“Like an Italian soap opera,” Valencia noted.

“You told me that my uncle and my mother might be immortal now?” I asked him.

He nodded. “I am assuming that. I am not sure.”

“You mean you don’t know?” Valencia asked him.

“I never reanimated anyone before, not in 300 years.”

“Three…” Valencia stammered. “Wow, this is all real?”

I laughed at her comment. “I keep thinking the same thing. I am gonna wake up and this will all be gone…” I shook my head.

“I can arrange that,” Max offered. “All I would have to do is go back to before you sneaked down the stairs and crept around the pantry to break into my sanctuary.”

I laughed. “Wow, that makes me sound like a real creep, Max.”

He shrugged. “I am a little miffed that you found me out.”

“Miffed?” Valencia asked as she now chuckled.

“No…no.” I shook my head. “We need to remember this. Because I will come back to the pantry all over again, Max. I know that I will. And by coming here, I found out there’s a lot of history that—”

“You shouldn’t meddle with,” he cut my words short.

“No, I think weshouldmeddle,” I told him.

“What good will that do?” he asked. “I have been around for centuries, Tito. And I have found that meddling in the past only brings misery.”

“Answers,” I pointed out. “I need them. The family deserves to know the truth. Like do you know why an assassin was sent out to kill my father?”

He stared at me.

“You don’t know, right? You killed the hitter but not the one who hired said hitter. You also claim to not know why he was killed.”

“I have my guesses.”

I laughed outright. “Guesses?”

“I’m a time traveler, not Sherlock Holmes.”

“He wasn't real,” Valencia interjected.

“Neither are time travelers,” Max quipped as he raised a brow at me.

“Wow, you do have a sense of humor!” I exclaimed. “Why did you keep all this personality in check for my whole life?”

He shrugged. “It was safer.”

“Safer?” I asked.

“Yes, if I had let my guard down, then you boys would have never left me alone and you would have discovered me. You all were and still are highly intelligent.”

“Yes, they are,” Valencia agreed.