Chapter 54 Step to the truth
Lila POV
“Fine. Just know that I’m very disappointed in you, nico.”
“That makes two of us. Now, the truth.”
She sighed over the speaker. “Nikolai was in love with the tramp. He wanted to marry her.”
My heart stopped, and nico took his hand off mine.
“Your father refused. He said that she wasn’t good enough for the man who would run this family, and that Nikolai needed to find himself a strong Italian woman. Not a filthy American snob.”
Nico sat back down and picked up the phone, holding it in front of him. “What happened?”
“Nikolai was angry, of course. So he went straight to her father, telling Falcone his plans to marry his daughter.
Like us, Falcone wasn’t thrilled. He contacted your father and an agreement was made to keep them apart.”
I got up from the bed, unable to sit still any longer while I heard this woman talk about Nikolai, and how he wanted to be with me forever.
Every word gnawed at my heart, breaking through my chest.
Nico glanced up at me, and I knew he hated hearing every word. “Go on.”
“We couldn’t keep him from seeing her. Nikolai was adamant, kept on telling us how much he loved her.
Falcone saw it as your father breaking the agreement, and took matters into his own hands.”
Oh my God.
My knees went weak, and I felt myself fall to the ground. But two arms surrounded me, keeping me from collapsing into a giant heap of despair.
My heart was shattered, my body aching as the truth slammed against bone. How could our fathers have conspired to keep us apart?
Was my father really capable of cold-blooded murder in a bid to manipulate my life?
Nico tightened his arms, and I leaned back, biting my tongue, fighting the urge to cry out loud as my heartache threatened to rip me open from the inside out.
“nico?”
“I have to go, mother.”
He killed the line, then tossed the phone aside, and I let loose. I screamed. My body wailed, the truth breaking through my chest.
Nico was right. His mother was right. I and my family was to blame for Nikolai death, and I fucking deserved to be here. I deserved this family’s wrath, their hate.
All this time I sat in that goddamn room feeling sorry for myself, thinking that the Moretti were monsters when in fact it was just karma being a bitch, exacting due payment…from me.
“lila, listen to me.”
I couldn’t, I was too busy listening to my soul crack into pieces.
Nico gripped my arms and spun me around, shaking me. “Listen to me, lila. She’s lying. My mother is lying.”
My body went stiff, my eyes searching his face. “How do you know?”
He cupped my cheeks in his palms, his thumbs wiping away my tears. “If he really planned on marrying you, why did he lie to you?
Why did he tell you his surname was Romano, and never mentioned me, his twin brother? It doesn’t make sense.”
“Maybe he planned to?”
Nico let go of me and stepped back. “No. Nothing about what my mother just said makes sense. I’m telling you, she’s lying.”
Tears still slipped down my cheek, but I wiped it away with the back of my hand. “If she is, how do we get to the truth?”
His gaze pinned me on the spot, the intensity of his dark eyes knocking the breath out of me and I knew I wasn’t going to like what he was about to say.
“By handing you over to my mother.”
Nico POV
Like Damon said before, ‘This shit is about to get real.’
Uncle Lucas had messaged me to say that he was here at the house with a few other men of the family he had managed to get on his side.
Not everyone was in favor of spilling blood for blood. He also warned me that the Moretti household was packing some serious ammo right now since everyone was on edge.
He also confirmed that neither Damon nor my mother had shared the news about rex murder with anyone.
My guess was they were saving it for when they made their final move to put me in checkmate.
I had no idea how I was going to handle that little piece of information yet, but of one thing I was certain our family has been divided, and no matter what happens today, we will never stand united again.
I pulled on my suit jacket and straightened my sleeves. I looked up into the mirror and watched lila reflection as she sat on the bed staring down at the floor.
“You okay over there?”
“Sure.” She shrugged. “I’m about to go face to face with a woman who wants nothing more than to see me choke on my own blood. I’ve never been better.”
I snorted. “At least you haven’t lost your sense of humor.”
She caught my gaze in the mirror. “It’s my life I don’t want to lose.”
I turned to face her, and glanced down at my shirt she was still wearing. “I’m sorry I don’t have anything else for you to wear.”
“It’s okay. My wardrobe is the last thing I’m worried about.” She bit her thumbnail between her teeth, her face nothing but lines of worry.
“Did you love him?” The question just rolled out of my mouth.
Blue eyes kept my gaze. “I don’t know. I thought I did, but I don’t know anything anymore.”
Her answer didn’t surprise me. All the lies that now suddenly surrounded everything about her and Nikolai being together was enough to make her doubt what she felt back then. But I remember how she mourned the ‘break-up’ when Nikolai just disappeared.
I watched her, I observed her, and her heartache was evident in every facial expression, and in every bottle of scotch she consumed.
It didn’t bother me in the slightest back then, but it bothered me now. It ate at me from the inside knowing that she might have truly loved him, and I had no right to feel that way. I didn’t have the right to lay claim on her…or did I?
Lila once belonged to my brother, but now she belongs to me.
I don’t know how it happened, but I claimed her, I claimed all of her, which was why knowing that she felt something, anything for my brother was the kind of knowledge I could have gone without.
Yet I was the one who asked the stupid goddamn question, and somewhere deep inside my chest I regretted it.
I just nodded and as I was about to turn around ready to let the subject go, she spoke.
“Nikolai lied to me, and a lie is just as good as cheating. I’m not sure I’ll ever get over that, which is why I need to know why he felt the need to lie. Nothing about any of this makes sense.