Chapter 26 26

Chapter 26 26

Sitting down heavily and clutching it to her chest as though wanting to throw it away, Isabella could barely breathe. The scattered pages were swept up with shaking hands. She needed answers. Someone to tell her this was wrong. That there was some mistake. That her father was not what these things said he was. She went straight to Mrs. Russo. The woman was in the kitchen, watching as the preparation for dinner went on and snapped when she saw the girl’s face. When she saw what she held in her hands, trembling.

“You’ve found out, then,” Mrs. Russo said quietly. Not a question.

“Tell me it’s not true,” Isabella begged. She shoved the document toward the housekeeper. “Tell me my father wasn’t, he couldn’t have—”

“Sit, child,” Mrs. Russo said softly. She took the girl’s arm and led her to a chair at the small kitchen table. Isabella’s legs gave out, and she sat, the paper still clenched in her hands.

“I want you to tell me the truth, please,” Isabella’s voice broke. “All of it. Everything. Please, I need to know.”

The kitchen staff was dismissed with a wave. The two of them were alone; Mrs. Russo sat across from her and did not speak for several minutes. Her lined face was once more grave. Sad.

“Your father was there the night they killed Giovanni’s family,” she said finally. And for Isabella, the world cracked, a new darkness was revealed, and she doubled over, keening, a sound she had never made before.

“Why?” she gasped. “Why would he do that? Help murder children?”

“I do not know,” Mrs. Russo admitted. “I was not told the details. I only saw the start and heard the end.”

She took a deep breath and then spoke so quietly that the room stilled to listen. “Five men. Five men came to this house. It was after midnight; it must have been. They had guns.” Another pause. “They came in through the side. The security system, someone disabled it. They knew. They knew the house.” Here, Isabella wrapped her arms around herself and began to shake. “ Mr. and Mrs. Genovese, in their – in their room. They went in and—quick. Professional.” Her voice grew harder.

“Seven-year-old Luca, he’d heard. The gun. He ran into the hall and –they shot. He was heading to Giovanni’s room to tell—. Giovanni, he tried to—. He heard too. He tried to fi—. He was just sixteen. He tried to fight five armed grown men. They held him and—they slit. And they left him there. The floor. he was next to Luca. Luca’s body.”

“And my father?” Mrs. Russo’s voice was rock hard. Isabella’s whispered barely emerged: “And my father?”

“Your father. Your father was…in the car. Waiting. I saw. I saw it all from my window. The car-it was black. A sedan. A black sedan. I saw them get it and left. And I saw it go. And when they didn’t, and I went down and…Giovanni…I called the police. And they ask, and told me to saw…everything. Everything. The car. The driver.”

Isabella was crying now. Silent tears streamed down her face; she couldn’t stop them. “Giovanni was sixteen years old,” Mrs. Russo said.

“A boy. They sliced open his throat and left him for dead next to his little brother’s body, but he survived, fought for his life just because he wanted to.” Mrs. Russo’s voice broke. “He’s spent the last fourteen years of his life taking revenge on the men who murdered his family. He’s murdered three of them. Your father was his fourth target.”

“Then when Giovanni came to our house.” Isabella’s voice was barely more than a hoarse whisper. “When he forced me to marry him.”

“He’d only killed your father a few hours earlier,” Mrs. Russo nodded. “Or had one of his men do it. Yes. Yes, that’s right. He killed Lorenzo Vinci and came back to our house for you.” The room rocked. Isabella gripped the side of the table.

“He killed my father. Because my father helped kill his family.”

“Yes.” Mrs. Russo nodded.

“And then he married me. To punish my father.” Isabella’s brain was catching up at last. She was seeing it now, the terrible logic. “To make him pay by making me suffer. He knew he would make me live with my father’s murderer. Me, Isabella Vinci son of. me. Pay for my father.”

“That’s right,” Mrs. Russo said again. Isabella thought she might be sick. It was so cruel. It was almost fair. But it was so horrible.

“I don’t understand,” Isabella said. She could hardly hear her own voice. “My father. He wasn’t like that. He was kind. He made me breakfast every Sunday. He liked art. We visited galleries together. He smiled. He laughed. How could someone like that murder children? How could he help kill a seven year old?”

“I do not know,” Mrs. Russo said; her voice was gentler now. “People are complicated, child. They can be loving fathers, and still, they can be monsters. In one part of their life, they can be kind, and on the other, horrific. They can truly love you and still do unforgivable things”. She remembered every memory of her father. Every laugh, every hug, every moment he smugly visited her gallery. His tears at the opening; was that all a lie? Smiling at her achievements while thinking about his family that he murdered? His advice about art and about life and love.

“I defended him,” Isabella whispered. Horror was dawning. Growing. “I told Giovanni I’d avenge him. I called him a good man. I said he didn’t deserve to die. Oh God, I—”

She couldn’t. The shame. The guilt. The revulsion. It all churned together in her gut until she couldn’t breathe right. She stood abruptly, the chair scraped against the floor. She staggered toward the door.

“Isabella—“ Mrs. Russo reached for her.

“I need to be alone,” Isabella managed. And she dashed from the kitchen. Down the halls. Up the stairs. To her room. She locked the door behind her and collapsed. On the floor, she lay for hours. She cried until she couldn’t cry anymore. Until her throat was sore and her eyes were on fire. Her father was a murderer. A child-killer. Everything she thought she knew about him was a lie. And Giovanni. Giovanni had every right to hate her. To persecute her. To destroy her life. Because her father had already destroyed his. Her father killed his mother. Killed his little brother. Left him to die, bleeding on the floor. Everything cruel Giovanni had bestowed on her was warranted. Wedded her. Locking her away. Isolation. It was nothing compared to what her father did to him. Isabella now realized Giovanni glared at her with cold indifference. Why he’d taken it all from her. Because her father robbed him of everything first. She didn’t sleep that night. She stayed in bed and stared at the ceiling. Her mind played everything back. Giovanni at sixteen. His throat slashed. Watching his family passed away. Her father behind the wheel of the car. Driving the murderers away. Taking their wallets. Coming home to his own daughter.

The fifteen years of revenge after that, too, made perfect sense. Giovanni, hunting down every member of the crew. Giovanni, killing them one by one. Giovanni, saving her father for last. Giovanni, taking his daughter and making her pay for sins that were not her’s but that she carried in her blood. Her forced marriage made terrible, perfect sense.

She lay in her bed, just after three in the morning, and finally made a decision. She couldn’t hide from this. Couldn’t ever pretend she didn’t know. Couldn’t go on acting like she was the victim and her father was the monster. Daughters suffered the sins of their fathers – twenty-four centuries later, that much hadn’t changed. Isabella had to face Giovanni. She had to acknowledge what her father did.

She had to apologize, even though no apology could ever be enough. She had to accept whatever punishment Giovanni deemed appropriate. Because she was Lorenzo Vinci’s daughter. As the grey light of dawn filtered through her window, Isabella got out of bed and went to look at herself in the mirror. Hollow-eyed and pale and broken – good. That was what she should look like. That was what she deserved to look like. She was Lorenzo Vinci’s daughter. A child murderer’s daughter. An innocent family’s killer’s daughter. It was time Giovanni knew she knew exactly what that meant. knew that she knew what her father had done. knew that she was sorry. knew that she would accept whatever he decided to do with her – because anything he did to her would be too lenient. Less than what she deserved. Less than what her father’s crimes demanded.