Chapter 214: I Need To Talk To Them
Chapter 214: I Need To Talk To Them
Camilla
"It was until your boyfriend abused his power within minutes of collecting it." My father stopped me in my tracks by nothing more than his words alone.
He was talking about Adriano and I didn't care about whatever he did to get on my father's bad side. I promise to be there the next time he needs an escape no matter what and I am currently thousands of miles away.
"Well, at least they don't hold me against my will to make me listen." I said, tears welling in my eyes but I was too damn stubborn to cry right now and I refused to do so.
"I need to speak to them, father." I tip my head, exhausted from recent events.
"Just let me make a call to let them know I am safe."
Adriano would never believe his ring would leave my finger at my own free willz he had to know something wasn't right. The way u left things with Domenico was a different story but I would at the very least say goodbye to the other two as well. I don't think my heart could handle never seeing them again.
"Would you still want to be with them if I told you that they are the reason your mother is dead?" He said coldly and then everything went quiet in my head.
The pounding of my headache and the loud scream of my thoughts all ceased, everything channeling into one single statement.
"What?" I said, my voice cracking from the dryness of my throat.
His fists shook where they were balled against the table and the intensity of his expression told me he wasn't lying. This wasn't some game to keep me here. I received a small look of sympathy from him but he never was one to soften the blow with me.
I felt like I couldn't breathe as he typed a few things into his computer before spinning it around to face me on the desk. While I practically across the room, there was no mistaking the terrified looks of my mother's face partially cut off by the broad shoulders of Adriano's body.
"No, he wouldn't do that." I shake my head as if the action could take the image away. He knows how much it would hurt me for her to die, there is no way.
"Press play," he commanded.
I wasn't sure if it was the adrenaline or the denial that made me want to prove him wrong but my feet were carrying me over to the desk before I could prepare myself for the horrible possibility he described. His eyes closed with pain as I did as he asked, however mine were unblinking as my fingers pressed down on the keyboard to begin the video feed. The quality was awful but I knew who the two people were just as I knew who was dead on the floor.
"You hurt her," were the first words that were spoken through the screen and if I could see Adriano's face, I knew it would be guilt I would be seeing.
"You wasted the chance given to you, there is nobody to blame for this but yourself." He continued and a sickening feeling filled my stomach at this.
My father believed these words were being spoken to his past wife but I knew Adriano better than that. Those words were directed at himself and the regret he felt for hurting me. I watched through blurry vision as a gun was raised to my mother's forehead, tears and blood flowing rapidly down her cheeks from where she was held captive. I waited with every part of me, hoping he would walk away. That he wouldn't do what my father told me he did.
"Please," a desperate whisper left my mother's mouth one last time and I almost felt relief when Adriano dropped his head, the gun leaving with him.
The wide frame of his body blocked the sight of my mother from her shoulders down but I didn't need to see when I heard the two deafening bangs of gunshots. I watched as her mouth parted in a shout as her body jolted and I didn't look away when Adriano turned until he was looking directly at the camera that captured this video. I looked into the darkness of his eyes before he raised his hand for the third time, aiming directly at lens before shooting and stopping the feed entirely and my heart along with it.
There was a sharp ringing in my ears as I stood there in shock but I could still hear when my father said her body was found this morning dead from the two bullet wounds to her heart and stomach. I couldn't stop myself as I collapsed into the chair I had previously been occupying and within seconds, I could feel my panic attack seizing my lungs and ripping at my chest. Every bit of denial I held had been diminished by a single minute of a recording and again when I learned Adriano had dumped her body at the back of a hotel, the same one where we first met.
My mother's death had been a message but I didn't know what exactly it was yet. Was he trying to punish me because he believed I actually left him?
"The plan was always to have Adriano kill Raphael because only he was capable of achieving it but your mother was caught in the middle in ways we still aren't sure of."
I think I am going to be sick.
"Where did you get this?" I asked, heaving air into my lungs as my knees curled up to my chest on the chair.
Even now, I wanted to refuse to believe this because this was something I would never be able to forgive no matter how much my heart aches for the three of us still in Kumon City.
"One of my men managed to pull this from their base before it could be deleted from their receiver. To make the story short, Raphael broke into your friend Nancy's phone when she was sleeping to get you out of the mansion. I sent a team out to retrieve you while Jacob Pope, the man you put in the infirmary, took your ring and composed a story that would make it seem like you ran."
A small bit of pride appeared on his face about the dagger part but I didn't seek it out in the way I once did growing up. Now, it was a reminder of everything I couldn't save.
"With you on the jet over here, Gregorio was the first to realize you were gone. He and Domenico have been out looking for you ever since but Adriano was seeking revenge in the form of a rampage. I know this is going to be hard to hear but his true colors aren't the same ones he showed you."
And that was the part that kept me from accepting all of this. It wasn't a mask Adriano wore with me but he is so skilled at wearing them to everyone else that is all the world has ever gotten to see. I felt as though my head might explode from the gears turning with this new information but it was until I went back to the beginning that I started to question things from a new perspective.
This was about them and I, this was about their mother and my uncle. The game of revenge was born of grief, Lucas for the loss of his brother and Raphael of his wife. But then again, why would Adriano kill my mother when this entire thing could have just been over? It didn't make sense.
Every conclusion I could think of led back to Raphael, so what was I missing from the night his wife died seventeen years ago? There was one question on the tip of my tongue I have been asking myself since I learned that my father is Lucas and I knew I couldn't cave to the cowardliness that tempted me to keep quiet. Too much rode on the answer.
"Did you kill their mother?" I asked, my nails digging into the palms of my hands as I waited for his response.
His eyes held a glint of surprise I was unfamiliar with as the words left my mouth and when he closed the lid of his computer, he touched my arms and responded.
"No, child, I didn't."
Just like that, the final piece of a very complicated, very jagged puzzle fell into place. There was only one other possibility as to how she died and it had everything to do with the secret my father was telling me about earlier.
"But Raphael did." I said, my chin lifting to fight against the disgust welling in my eyes.
I didn't need my father's confirmation, his silence was answered enough because what I have failed to realize this entire time is that Adriano, Domenico and Gregorio have been living a lie for almost two decades of their lives, their efforts wasted on a man trying to cover his tracks.
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