Chapter 71

**Lily**

I was shaking a little and I was very nervous. I didn’t know what to expect today, and that made me anxious. Today was going to be the day to get some answers from Mario. There was no saying whether he would answer me readily, or whether he would refuse. I didn’t know what kind of ways Matteo would have to get someone like Mario to talk. I would expect that Mario would have some experience in tortures, and somehow, I think it is not going to be easy to get my answers.

There are still several questions that kept running through my mind. There are still things that I don’t understand, but I would like to understand. I wanted to know why my mom ran from him all those years ago, and why she got caught up in the money laundering. I had my suspicions, but I wanted to see if I could get a plausible answer to it from Mario.

But then again, maybe I shouldn’t get my hopes up. Maybe Mario wouldn’t be prepared to tell me anything. Or if he does tell me, it would only be lies. Anything was possible, and it made my stomach churn.

“Ready?”, Matteo asked me softly. I nodded, not trusting my voice at the moment. My nerves had gotten the best of me, and I was trembling slightly.

“Do you have the questions you want answers to?”, Matteo asked me. I handed him the piece of paper I had written the questions on. Vita had told me to do so, to be sure I wouldn’t forget anything. But now I was happy I did, because then Matteo could ask Mario in case my voice would fail me.

“Good. Let’s go.”, Matteo said, and he took my hand. Together we walked from his office to the entrance of their cells. We met Ennio and Luciano there as well. There was a curt nod from both of them, but both were already in a different state of mind.

Ennio opened a door, and we stepped into the room. Mario was sitting in the middle of the room, tied to a chair, and with a blindfold covering his eyes and earphones over his ears. He couldn’t hear or see us, which strangely was a comfort for me.

It was weird to see him there. Last time I had seen him, the tables had been turned. He had been the one to tell me to kill Matteo, which I didn’t want to do. I can’t see his eyes, because the blindfold is covering them and half his face with it, but he seems skinnier. Seems like a normal thing that Matteo wouldn’t be feeding him a three-course meal. Mario still was captured after all.

Luciano walked over to Mario, and stood behind him, while Ennio walked to the side of the room and got some stuff out of some drawers and cabinets. Matteo led me to a chair and knelt in front of me.

“You don’t have to be here if you don’t want to, Lily.”, he said softly as he took my hands in his. “I am more than happy to get the answers from him for you, if you don’t want to see it.”

I nodded, understanding what he was saying between the lines. If I didn’t want to see the torture, I could go.

“If it gets to be too much at any point, let me, Ennio, or Luciano know, and one of us will take you out of the room. There will be a guard outside that will take you back to the main house. The three of us will finish it up here.”, he gave me another out.

I gave him another nod. “I want to try to be here.”, I tell him.

“Good. But I can’t prepare you enough for how messy it will get.”, Matteo said, almost sounding apologetic.

I nodded, still not trusting my voice. Matteo got up, and I wiped down my sweaty hands on my pants, mentally getting ready for this. If that was even possible.

Matteo looked at Ennio, who nodded back. Next, Matteo nodded to Luciano, who in turn removed the earphones. The music, if you could call it that, could be heard across the room. Mario would be deaf if he wasn’t already. After that, he took off the blindfold.

Mario blinked a couple of times, and then his lips rested in a sly smirk. “Hello, my daughter.”, he said, his voice laced with something malicious that Lily couldn’t pin down. “I guess, you want some answers before you make them kill me.”

Well, so much for the surprise factor! I guess this was a general practice in this world of criminals like them.

“Are you going to give them to me?”, I asked, sounding firm. I was surprised I was even able to sound like this.

Mario just laughed. I just continued to look at him, not knowing what else to do. “What would you like to know, dear?”, he asked grinning. I glanced at Ennio and Luciano quickly, seeing that they were ready to do God knows what when Matteo would order them to.

“How do you know I’m your daughter?”, I asked him. It wasn’t the first and most important question I wanted to ask him, but it made sense for me to start with this one.

“Same way you know. Your mom was pregnant when she left, and there is no record of her losing the baby.”, Mario answered. At least this answer was consistent with what I knew already.

“How did you find my mom?”, I asked him. Mario laughed, like he just remembered the best joke around.

“Yeah, Maria Bruno, Mary Brown. Smart move. Hiding in numbers, do you know how many Browns live in this country? In this city alone?”, Mario smirked. “Jelena Stojanovic? Not so many. Salvatore Caruso? Not so many either. Once I found them, they led me to your mother. She should have cut all connections to her past, and I might have never found her at all.”

I had known she met with my mom once in a while, so it didn’t seem that out of the ordinary that Mario would have found her and followed her around without her knowing. So far, he seemed to answer my questions truthfully.

“Why did my mom leave you?”, I asked him. Jelena didn’t say anything about this, and I was curious whether Mario would say anything.

“Because she was a fucking hypocrite. Said she didn’t want anything to do with this life after I killed someone in her presence. She fucking grew up in this life!”, Mario’s voice rose with every word he said, and he was getting flustered. He was getting angry.

Ennio punched him in his stomach. “Mind your language!”, he growled. Mario groaned, but the sly smirk was back on his face.

“So, why was Mary laundering money for you?”, Matteo asked him, while he placed his hands on my shoulders. I looked at him curiously, not understanding why he took over the questioning. Matteo didn’t meet my eyes, but instead kept his gaze fixed on Mario.

“Fucking bitch stole my money!”, Mario shouted. As a reflex, Ennio punched him in the face. Mario spit on the floor and turned back to face me and Matteo.

“Mary stole my money.”, Mario said again, this time calmer than before. Ennio punched him again.

“Answer the question.”, Matteo ordered Mario.

“Fuck you.”, Mario spat at him. It was all Ennio needed for him to go at him like he was a punching bag.

“Stop!”, I yelled. I’m not sure where I got the guts to go against Matteo and Ennio at their own game, but I was thinking that I wasn’t going to get any answers by punching Mario until he passed out.

“Lily.”, Matteo warned me. His eyes were clouded, and he was not happy with what I did.

“I want Mario to be able to actually answer. Punching until he passes out doesn’t do that.”, I said firmly to Matteo. Or at least, as firmly as I was capable.

“Why was mom laundering money for you?”, I asked Mario again.

Mario grinned. “Thank you, my daughter. At least someone is making sense around here.”, he said, taunting Matteo and Ennio. They were getting angrier by the second.

“I asked you, why was mom laundering money for you?”, I asked him again, as threatening as I could. Though I guess it wasn’t very effective to these guys.

“When I found your mom, I found out about you. I did the math, you had to be my daughter. So, I told her to help me out, or I would get to you.”, Mario said.

“So, you bribed my mom into doing criminal activities for you?”, I asked him to double check.

Mario huffed. “Criminal activity. Laundering money isn’t a criminal activity.”, Mario countered. I guess his view of the law was a bit biased, to say the least. Though the laundering of money might be the least criminal activity that happened in their organization.

“The law disagrees with you on that one.”, I told him, my voice was strangely steady.

Mario smirked. “Your mom was always a financial mastermind. She was great at the financial stuff. When I found her, and we got her with her back against the wall, I thought we hit the jackpot. Instead, she goes behind my back and steals my fucking money.”, he smirked.

He was telling me again some things about my mom that I never knew. Turns out that my love for numbers was genetic.

“She did that for me.”, I said, thinking about the trust fund that my mom made for me.

“It’s my fucking money!”, Mario yelled again, fighting against his restraints. Ennio went to stand between Mario and me.

“Did you kill her?”, I asked Mario. He just looked at me with this devilish gleam in his eyes, suddenly looking like a true villain.