Chapter 12
Amelia
I could have stayed there in Luc’s arms forever. Pushing reality through the door. Keeping it at bay forever.
We got out of the hot tub about an hour later, played around in bed for another hour, then headed to my family home.
The feeling I got on entering the premises was not like last night when I got to Luc’s place.
All I could remember was the day I left, and the heaviness that hung over me that night.
I felt it now, but this was different. It was the tension that came with returning and not knowing how I was going to feel when I saw my father.
The doors opened when we rang the bell.
A butler answered. A man I didn’t know.
“Good morning, he’s in his office waiting for you,” the butler informed us. His gaze took in both of us, but then he fixated on me and ushered us inside.
Nerves pricked the back of my throat and made my palms feel sweaty.
Luc kept hold of my hand but let go of it when we reached the base of the stairs. We stopped there.
The office was just ahead, and the door was ajar.
I looked around at the place that used to be my home.
I’d danced around the corridors of this house, every single one.
Crashing into things when I was little, breaking stuff.
Over there by the corner was where I used to do my stretches. Mom would help me.
Beyond that was the kitchen and the back stairs that led to my room.
“Are you okay?” Luc asked.
“No, I’m not, Luc. What am I supposed to say to him?”
“Do what your heart tells you.” His handsome face lit up into a smile. “I’ll wait in the living room. I’ll come running if you need me.”
“You promise?”
“Always, goddess.”
He kissed me, then made his way into the living room.
I pulled in a very deep breath, attempting to clear my mind. It sort of did.
When I walked up to Dad’s office door which was slightly ajar, I could see him sitting behind the desk. His head was bent low over some documents.
His hair was a mixture of black and gray.
Ten years. Over ten years.
He was sixty-five now.
Another breath gave me the energy to knock on the door. It was just a small tap, which actually held the air of nerves I used to feel when I came into his office. I knew not to disturb him when he was inside. Sometimes I had to, mostly when I wanted extra money for the mall or needed new dance gear.
Sweat dripped from my hands.
“Come in.” He called out, stopping what he was doing and lifting his head.
When I pushed the door fully, he saw me, and his cheeks colored.
I stood there, frozen like an ice sculpture. Frozen in time, unable to will my legs to move.
He had the side door open that led out onto the terrace. The breeze wafted in from there and lifted the ends of my ponytail.
I gazed at him.
His face was thinner and not as vibrant as it had looked when I last saw him. He looked thin too. Still held that strong sense of authority, but I could tell he was sick.
It seemed that he tried to mask it, probably too by being down here instead of in bed.
My mind conjured up the last time, and all the circumstances surrounding that.
He rose and stood on shaky legs, which were thin too. I’d never seen him look so frail.
I opened my mouth to speak, deciding I’d be strong. After all, I came here for a reason. One of them was to see him again before he died. The other was to hear the truth.
Safety too. Like a rat I’d scrambled back home for protection.
No words came from my mouth. Everything jammed in my mind. That confliction came back, washing over me.
Agent Peterson. Mom. The lies.
I wanted to hate him. I wanted to hate him and show that I did.
He’d robbed me of my life by being a bad person.
And yet… when I looked at him, I saw the man who took me to my first ballet class and waited for me until class was over. I was five, and yet I still remembered.
He’d come with me to every single class. Then Mom eventually joined him. He told her I was good and something worth seeing. That made her leave her weekly shopping trip with her friends.
When I looked at him, I remembered how effortlessly he gave me one of his kidneys, as if that was just the thing to do. As if it were nothing to him if that was what he needed to do for me.
For me…
The memory made me take a step forward.
He did too.
The memory sparked others, and in the space of me moving at a snail’s pace, images of good times flickered through my mind. Playing my past. Playing my present.
He’d taken care of me even when he couldn’t do it himself. Sent Luc to me. The best person he knew would protect me, and look how Luc protected me. My father didn’t do anything he wasn’t sure of.
He knew Luc would protect me to the death if it came to it, and what had Dad said to me before I left so long ago?
That he’d protect me and love me with his last breath.
Tears were streaming down my cheeks. I wanted to hate him for all he’d done… but I couldn’t.
I couldn’t.
“Dad.” A rush of warmth filled me, sparking my soul, filling me with life.
He was what had been missing all this time. I’d felt the way I did, so incomplete, because I was living a made-up life. Shunning the one I had, shunning him.
Banishing him.
It was me whose legs started to shake now. Shake so bad they gave away beneath me.
He caught me and held me. “Amelia, my little girl.”
He held me close to the wild beat of his heart, and we both cried.
Luc came in when he heard me crying.
When he saw I was okay and just overwhelmed, he backed away to head back into the living room, but Dad stopped him.
“Stay, it’s time,” Dad said and motioned for us both to sit in the sofas by the window.
We sat down, me next to Luc. Dad in front of us.
I couldn’t get over how old and frail he looked.
How far had the cancer spread? I knew it was a brain tumor from what Luc had said. An inoperable one.
At least he could function as close to normal as possible from what I saw.
“The man who is running this operation is Taglioni Donachie. He was a close friend of mine.” Straight to business. “Amelia, before you left home, something terrible happened that had a knock-on effect, including taking your mother’s life. I was friends with Tag; that’s what we called him since birth. I kept you and your mother out of the business for obvious reasons. We weren’t like other crime families. Being the boss meant keeping what I held dear away from everyone. However, your mother and Tag met by accident. Something was going down one day at one of the restaurants, and I needed him to watch over her. You were away at summer camp. That chance meeting sparked an affair.”
My eyes grew wide. “Mom had an affair?”
“Yes.”
I always assumed it was him. I heard arguing sometimes and words being thrown around. It seemed then that it was him.
“I thought you… I thought you had an affair at one point.”
“My dear girl, your mother was the love of my life. To me the sun revolved around her. But that wasn’t enough for her. I didn’t know the extent of the affair until that time. I foolishly didn’t think it was an affair. It enraged me when I found out. I caught them, but they did not see me.” He paused mid-sentence, thinking.
I remembered when I found Jordan cheating on me, right in the act too. If you love the person, it hurts like hell.
I loved Jordan, and it did hurt, but I didn’t behave in the distressed way that I imagined. Not the way I did when I thought I’d lost Luc.
Dad sighed and continued. “At the time, Tag and I were planning
a heist on a shipment of diamonds worth billions coming from South Africa. We got a tip from a senator there, who wanted in on the fortune but didn’t have the means to get such an operation off the ground. We were offered a billion dollars each if we could secure it.”
“What kind of diamonds were they?” Luc chimed in.
That was the very thing I wanted to know. I knew some diamonds were worth a lot, but billions? And to be paid a billion each? God.
“They call them Celestial Diamonds because they look like stars and are a pure white color. They are very rare.”
Luc tensed. Since I’d never heard of them, hearing the name was lost on me. Sounded amazing though, like something from a fairy tale.
“Celestial Diamonds? I thought those were a myth.” Luc cocked his head to the side.
“They were until they were found in one of the old mines in the Limpopo Province. Found by accident. Hidden. And we wanted to keep it that way, so they were smuggled here.”
It was crazy, and too much. And I was pushing thoughts of Mom having an affair out of my mind, so I could focus on what he was saying to us, but my attention was scrambled. I couldn’t believe she would do something like that to Dad, to us.
“How much are they worth?” I had to ask.
“Now, twenty billion easily. There were ten cuts,” Dad continued, and I hung on to every word. “The plan was to pick up the diamonds on the shipment, which to everyone else was supposed to be art work coming in to the museum. Donated by one of the families the senator worked with. That was of course a cover for what was really going on. The crew going in was Tag, his three sons, myself and a few of our trusted guys. When I found out about his betrayal with Eloise, I lost my mind. Agent Peterson was one of my contacts in the feds. He made things disappear. I tipped him off about the heist, telling him Tag and his sons were going to steal the art work. But Peterson messed up. He took his crew in and killed Tag’s three sons. Then your mother ended up there because she found out that I’d tipped off the feds and wanted to warn Tag. She got caught in the crossfire.”
He looked at me.
That was it, the missing piece.
The reason why my mother was at the docks. A place she shouldn’t have been.
Numbness took over my body. I didn’t know what I’d expected to feel when I learned the truth, but it wasn’t this.
It was the affair. The knowledge that Mom had an affair with this person and ended up dying for him.
I stood up, hands shaking. At least it was a feeling other than numb.
“Amelia…” Dad gazed at me with pure concern. It was a look I remembered seeing on him often. It reflected his love for me.
I shook my head. “It’s too much. Why couldn’t you have told me this before? Why wait until now?”
“No. Amelia, this man is the vilest person I’ve ever known. Dangerous in every sense. You see the people he hired. Victor, who returned from the dead, and Demarco. My association with him is one thing I can’t take back because at one point I was vile too. Never like him though. With him, it’s all about revenge. Blood for blood. That day, he lost his three sons and your mother. The fact that she was there and I wasn’t was a near giveaway that I had something to do with tipping off the feds. I was able to come up with the excuse that I was delayed in getting to them and she must have come to warn both of us. I knew he would come for you if he ever found out the truth.”
“How did he find out?”
Dad shook his head and shrugged. “I have no idea. The only person who knew the truth was Agent Peterson.”
He looked away from me as he said that.
I understood it now. Agent Peterson came here that night when Dad shot him to ask him to come clean because his job was on the line, because of my mother’s death. Dad knew what would have happened if he’d come clean.
I understood it now. But it didn’t make me feel any better.
In fact… I felt worse, and sick because the truth of the matter was, my father did all of that to protect me.
“Would Peterson have told anyone?” Luc asked.
God, I almost forgot he was here.
“It’s possible, but this was all so long ago that it would be difficult for me to trace,” Dad replied.
“It doesn’t matter,” I cut in. “How is not what matters; it’s what we do now. The problem isn’t solved by me being here. All we managed to avert is me being taken and used for whatever he wants. Is it money he wants? Is that why he wanted me unharmed?”
From the look on Dad’s face, I knew that there was more I wouldn’t like.
“No, not money. It’s the diamonds.”
“What?” Luc asked with a raised brow. “You said the feds got there.”
“The feds got there, but they never knew about the diamonds. My guys got to the shipment first and took them. Nothing was ever reported because no one ever knew about them.”
“The diamonds?” Luc looked at him, eyes cold and penetrating. “This is about diamonds that you still have? That’s what they want?” Luc glanced my way and sighed with frustration.
“Yes. That, and Amelia dead.”
Chapter 13
Amelia
“Where are they? The diamonds, where are they? Here in the house?” I asked, ignoring the last part of the revelation.
They wanted me dead. I knew that. Of course, I knew it boiled down to that, but hearing it was another matter. My hands shook.
“No. Not here,” Dad replied.
“Where?
“Somewhere safe,” Dad answered.
“What? You aren’t going to tell me?” I understood. I was the cop in the room. Of course, he wouldn’t tell me.
“You’ll get access to them after my death, or the end of this, whichever comes first. I’ve left instructions for the diamonds to be handed in to the correct authorities. You’ll do that.” He looked at Luc, who appeared surprised by the comment.
“Where is it?” Luc asked, staring him down. “Raphael you will tell us right the hell now.”
Dad frowned in frustration and bared his teeth. “In a secure facility in Rockford.”
“Why did you take it in the first place?” Luc asked.
“Because Tag wanted it. He believed they were seized by the feds. Until recently. That was probably part of what led him to realize that it was me who ratted him out. Whatever he found out made him dig a little deeper and connect the dots.”
“Those diamonds are the only leverage we have,” Luc stated.
What a fucking mess.
“Yes. As long as I have them, Amelia’s safe. Now that she’s home, we keep her safe.”
“I agree, but we need to have the diamonds as well,” Luc shot back.
“No, the diamonds stay where they are. We can’t have the diamonds and Amelia in the same place. That’s foolish.”
“They’re coming here, and they won’t stop until they have both. Her and the diamonds. Victor spent a month toying with us, learning. Trust me, that wasn’t just for the heck of it, or for his stupid games. They have to be stopped. We go after them and stop them.”
“I don’t want a blood bath.”
“We can’t just sit around like ducks,” Luc argued. “We’re stronger here. If they come, we have to be ready for them. How do you know they can’t get to the diamonds in this secure facility?” Luc flared.
I couldn’t believe this. It was like planning a war.
“We should call the feds, or at least the cops,” I suggested.
The two of them looked at me as if I’d just said something truly ridiculous.
“Amelia, I know you think that’s a good idea, but it’s not,” Luc replied.
I blinked several times. My blood bubbled and boiled. This was the crux of the whole thing for me. Taking the law into our own hands.
“Why, why wouldn’t it be? That’s what they’re there for.”
“I agree, but they all do things in a way that we don’t have the luxury for right now. Not to mention the overarchi
ng fact that we don’t know who to trust. Remember Cole.” Luc lifted his shoulders.
“How the hell could I forget Cole?” I balled my fists, heat rushing to my cheeks. “It was my fault he was killed.”
“No.” Luc stood now too. “It wasn’t your fault. It was the person who’s helping Tag. That’s who. And that person is a cop. There was no reason for Cole to die. Amelia, I’ve said it from day one. There’s a rat, and it’s one of your guys.”
Your guys.
I hated the way he said that, with such distaste and disdain.
“So, because we have someone helping them, you think it’s okay to just take things over?”
“I’ll do what I have to, to protect you.”
God, this was déjà vu.
Dad had said similar words to me ten years ago.
I shook my head and walked out.
Luc followed me into the hall and grabbed my arm, pulling me back.
“Amelia, you know we can’t report this to the police and leave them to take care of it.” His face contorted with fury. “Why do you think we came here?”
I looked at him. I knew, I knew the answer to that, and I knew this whole conversation was crazy. It was crazy for me to think that we could leave it to the police or feds when they were just as guilty.
It was just too much, and when I looked at Luc, I thought this could be my life.
Thinking that the people whose jobs it was to protect us was unachievable. Being with someone who took matters into their own hands.
“Just this morning you talked about changing. This is not changing.”
His face fell. “This is not that, Amelia, and you know it. You know this is the right thing. We have to take this into our own hands, or I’ll end up behind bars if the feds or police know the truth about everything. Then I’ll be helpless.”
I didn’t think about that. “Maybe you won’t.”
He leaned forward. “Look, Amelia, I won’t sugarcoat anything or paint myself in a good light. I’m not that. I’m linked to your father. Being locked up doesn’t bother me, but I’m not going down and leaving you to fight for your life.”
“I need some time to process this.” And some space.
Mafia Scars (The Accidental Mafia Queen Book 2) Page 11