Thin Lives (Donati Bloodlines #3)

by Bethany-Kris

  He killed before.

  This didn’t feel the same at all.

  The office looked like a tornado had gone through it. A small table was overturned. Knickknacks had been tossed around, as had books from the shelves on the right wall. The window curtains behind the desk were half ripped down, and drawers had been pulled out and the contents strewn from the desk.

  Calisto took another step back, wanting to put more distance between himself and something that seemed entirely too surreal to be true.

  It was too late, because his eye had caught the form slumped over the desk. All that blood had stained papers, folders, and the collection of white candles on the very edge. A large spray of blood had also caught the wall off to the left, coating pictures and framed articles.

  Jesus Christ.

  That much blood …

  That much couldn’t be a gunshot.

  Calisto would be able to see the wound if it were.

  No, he could see plainly—pained as he was—exactly what had caused Father Day’s death. The large, morbid red staining at the collar and shoulders of the priest’s robes spoke of a slit throat. The fact that so much blood had come from it meant that death wasn’t instant, his heart had kept beating for a short while, and he probably died from bleeding out.

  Calisto wished in that moment that he hadn’t come.

  This was not the way he wanted to remember his priest.

  This was not what he came here for today.

  His gaze scanned the office again, taking it and the mess in. Despite his shock and pain, he took note of the fact there didn’t seem to have been a struggle between Father Day and whoever had attacked him. Calisto took that to mean the priest must have trusted the individual enough to feel safe in their presence.

  A few items on the floor caught Calisto’s eye, too. Some rested on top of the pooling blood, meaning the room had most likely been ransacked after the attack.

  What was more disconcerting was the wallet on the desk, and the golden cross still hanging on the wall.

  Things that were valuable, or might have value, had been left behind.

  A robbery with no theft?

  Unlikely.

  Calisto didn’t like what his thoughts were leading to, but what else could he think? The place looked staged, Father Day had obviously trusted his attacker, and it looked like Calisto was the only person who was showing up to the church that day.

  And Affonso had known …

  Swallowing hard, Calisto didn’t want to think it was related, but his heart wouldn’t let the nagging idea go.

  There was nothing to know, his uncle had said.

  Nothing.

  Would Affonso kill a priest?

  His own priest?

  Was there something worth hiding—something more valuable than the life of a holy man?

  Calisto didn’t want to even consider it.

  But he already had.

  Emma

  Absentmindedly, Emma rubbed a hand over top her twenty-four week swell. Under her palm, she felt the gentle kicks and nudges from her baby boy as he tried to settle into a more comfortable position. Wincing when a particularly hard kick landed under her bottom rib, she shifted on the couch in an attempt to help the baby find what he was looking for.

  “What are you fidgeting for over there?”

  Emma’s attention flew to her husband across the room. Her hand stilled on her stomach as Affonso’s cold black eyes looked her over. She hated when he did that above most other things he did—and there was a lot about her husband to hate.

  But when he looked at her, she knew he was searching for all sorts of things. Imperfections in her mask, unhappiness in her attitude, shame in her actions …

  After all, he had already caught her in an affair.

  He was simply waiting on the next time he could punish her for something else she did wrong, she believed.

  “The baby,” Emma said in explanation.

  Affonso’s lips pursed as his gaze lowered to her midsection. For the briefest moment, the coldness disappeared from his eyes, replaced by a softer glint. She swore it was the only time he did look at her with any sort of affection now—and it was always for the baby.

  He protected the unborn child, and in turn, kept her safe. He made sure she was taken care of by the best doctors his money could buy, seeing as how her pregnancy was high-risk, due to her weakened cervix. He claimed to love the baby, despite it not being his.

  But that was a secret she wasn’t allowed to tell.

  Emma wished she could—she thought about Calisto Donati daily. She’d watched him struggle for months from afar. He fought with his lost memories, his unknown heartache, and the life he was still trying to catch up with.

  She hated seeing him so dependent on Affonso for things like he now seemed to be. The two men were close, but it wasn’t such a surprise. Calisto lost his memories that would have given him the truth about Affonso and all the awful, terrible things he had done over the decades to his own family.

  No, the man Calisto cared for was not that Affonso. He was the Affonso who had cared for him as a boy, taught him how to be a man, and raised him as if he were his son.

  Calisto was Affonso’s son—a secret that had been hidden for years—but he didn’t even know that, anymore.

  Emma drew in a slow breath, letting her hand still on her stomach again. Her one goal was to keep her child—Calisto’s boy—safe from any and all harm. He was an innocent baby, not yet born. His biggest threat was only a few feet away, just across the room from Emma at that very moment.

  Affonso had been a threat to her child the very second he knew she was pregnant. There had been no hiding the fact he wasn’t the father. He hadn’t been around for a couple of months leading up to the time she got pregnant, and even before when he was, they hadn’t been intimate in a long while.

  He knew immediately.

  And the anger …

  She had been terrified, wanting to hide the truth of the baby’s paternity to save not only him, but his father as well. It ended up being the exact opposite. She saved her own life, her child’s, and Calisto’s by simply telling the truth.

  Why?

  Because Affonso loved his boy.

  His son was his greatest achievement, even if Calisto didn’t know it right now. Calisto may have been a product of Affonso’s violence and his horrible nature, but he’d still made him. He was still his blood—his only boy.

  And he would never hurt him, no matter what he did.

  No matter how vile his betrayal.

  So, Emma did what she had to.

  She’d hoped—though it faded a little with each day that passed and Calisto didn’t remember their time, love, or moments—that Calisto would wake up one day and know her … see her and just know.

  It hadn’t happened yet.

  She was beginning to think, after five months of no changes, that he never would.

  “What are you thinking about over there?” Affonso asked, drawing Emma from her thoughts.

  She kept her head down, and traced a fingertip over her swell. “I have another appointment tomorrow. I was thinking about that.”

  It wasn’t a lie. Twice weekly, she went into her OB GYN’s office to have her cervix checked and measured for any changes. Now that she had passed the twenty-week mark in her pregnancy, the doctor was even more vigilant. At any time, if the baby began to put too much pressure on her weakened cervix, it might start to open.

  She could lose her child.

  She couldn’t do that again, not after the last two babies. The first time, she had been alone. The second, Calisto had helped her through not only the delivery of a child that didn’t survive, but the black depression that followed right behind for months.

  This pregnancy—Calisto’s baby—was so important to Emma. In more ways than just one. She had to care for his son, and keep him safe at all costs, because he couldn’t do it right now. And the baby was the one and only real thing that Emma had left to
hold onto from her affair with Calisto. Nothing else had been left behind, really. With his memories gone, it was like it didn’t even happen to him.

  Only she knew.

  And Affonso, of course.

  Yes, the baby’s life was incredibly important. She had the distinct feeling that if—heaven forbid—she went into early labor again, and the baby died, it would not end well for her.

  The baby was, undoubtedly, the one and only thing keeping her alive.

  At least where Affonso was concerned.

  She was the gatekeeper, so to speak. She carried the child he wanted—the boy he needed. He’d been forced for years to act as though Calisto wasn’t his son, and her baby was now the one chance he would have to produce another boy.

  A boy he could claim.

  A boy that was a piece of Calisto—someone Affonso loved wholly.

  Selfishly, even.

  Affonso might have hated her, and what she did, but she had something he wanted more than anything. Something he could love, since he had so little of that to spare for everyone else around him.

  No, he wouldn’t hurt her.

  Not while she was the gatekeeper to the baby, anyway.

  What terrified her the most, however, was what her husband might do to her after the child was safely born, and out of her arms. Would he kill her then or let her live since she’d given him a gift, despite the shame it was steeped in?

  Swallowing back the sudden rush of worry, Emma forced her expression to remain a mask of calm. Affonso was still watching her from behind his desk. She pretended like he wasn’t, grabbing her book off the couch to flip through the pages and go back to the spot she had left off from.

  She didn’t want to be in his office at all. She much preferred to be alone.

  If she couldn’t have Calisto, then being alone seemed much better.

  Affonso didn’t give her a choice. She was rarely allowed out of his sight when he was home, and when he wasn’t, she couldn’t leave unless it was something for the baby.

  “Cynthia called last night,” Affonso said.

  “Oh?” Emma wondered why her husband would bother to bring up a phone call about her step-daughter when he usually never did. “About what?”

  “She wanted to know if you were going to have a baby shower, or something of that nature.”

  Emma shrugged, never looking up from her book. At the same time, an idea flew into her head, giving her a bit of relief. “Not before—I might have to stay in the hospital for a couple of months leading up to the birth. I would hate to have people make plans and then be forced to cancel them last minute. It wouldn’t be fair.”

  “You’re not going into the hospital yet,” Affonso said.

  “We don’t really know when it will happen,” Emma reminded him. “It could be tomorrow—it might be another month. It’s hard to say, as there have been no changes. But we both know the last time my cervix opened prematurely, it happened very quickly, and we didn’t have much warning.”

  Affonso scowled. Each and every time her premature delivery was brought up in some way to him, he either treated it with scorn and disdain, or outright ignored it. Over the last few months, Emma had gotten better at not letting her husband’s lack of empathy and his horrible attitude toward her loss roll off her shoulders.

  She couldn't change who Affonso was.

  Why bother to try?

  “True enough. What is your point?” Affonso asked.

  “My point, Affonso, is exactly what I already said. I don’t want to have people make plans, only for them to be canceled. Why not do a meet-and-greet after the baby is born, before he’s been Christened, and all of that? Have a dinner and a party to show him off, and allow people to say hello. That sort of thing.”

  Affonso leaned back in his chair, folding his arms over his chest. “How soon after my boy is born?”

  Emma barely held back her flinch at his casual use of “my boy” like the son she carried actually belonged to him, when he knew damn well the baby was Calisto’s. The sudden flood of anger rushing through her bloodstream heated her up, but she pushed it back down.

  Getting into some spat with Affonso would do her no good. That’s exactly what he probably wanted. Just one single reason to end her life, and her child’s.

  Even if he did want the baby.

  “As soon as you would like,” Emma forced herself to say sweetly, and with a fake smile.

  It damn near killed her to give him those things—her politeness and smiles, and to put his wants and needs above her own. She despised this man with every single fiber of her being. She had hated him from the moment she met him, and it had only grown worse over time.

  The very thought of allowing people into her home soon after the birth of her son to fawn over him and his pseudo-father sickened her to her very core; to have those people congratulate Affonso like he created the baby’s life and deserved the praise for it tore her soul apart.

  But her baby …

  Calisto’s baby needed to live.

  She needed to live.

  No matter how dire things seemed the longer she waited for Calisto to start remembering, or even for him to begin putting the pieces left behind back together, she wouldn’t give up hope.

  They weren’t hopeless.

  Not yet.

  “I’ll want him Christened soon after, before two weeks,” Affonso said, more to himself than to her. “Ray would make a good godfather for him, don’t you think?”

  Emma’s head snapped up at that statement.

  No.

  Absolutely not.

  She might as well have been screaming it.

  Affonso caught her eye, a slow smile growing. “I can see it in your face, donna, that you disagree. Say it, just this once. I’ll let you have it.”

  Emma willed the dryness in her throat away. “Let Calisto be his godfather. Please give him that at least. Not just Cal, but the baby, too.”

  “Hmm.”

  She waited, silent and frozen, as Affonso drummed his fingers against his arm like he was actually considering what she had said.

  “You do remember what I told you that day in your closet, right?” Affonso asked.

  Emma nodded.

  He would kill her and the child if she ever told Calisto the truth.

  “I won’t tell him the truth about the baby and the affair. I haven’t even tried, Affonso. I have done everything you’ve asked of me since that day, so please let him have this. He doesn’t even know. He didn’t know before the accident.”

  Affonso’s brow lifted slightly. “You never told me that.”

  Shit.

  “I didn’t get the chance to tell him.”

  That seemed to please her husband.

  Emma would take whatever she could get from the man, whatever she could use.

  Finally, after a long silence stretched between the husband and wife, Affonso waved a hand as if to dismiss her and the entire conversation. “Fine, I’ll have Cal be the godfather to the baby. Better it is him, anyway. Even if he doesn’t know the truth about everything that’s happened, I have a feeling there’s a part of Calisto that does … know. Maybe he just feels it, but he knows. And should something ever happen to you or I, the boy will be in good hands with Cal, I’m sure.”

  “Thank you.”

  Affonso shrugged like it didn’t make a difference. “Just remember that your life has a clause now, Emma.”

  She sucked in a sharp breath.

  “And if you fail me again,” Affonso continued, still as cold as ever, “I will happily bring the clause into effect and end your life as I see fit.”

  “I did what you wanted,” she repeated. “I’ve not done anything wrong.”

  “Good for that, hmm?” He smiled. “Keep it up, that’s all.”

  For her baby?

  Anything.

  For Calisto?

  She was backed into a corner, and couldn’t even begin to fight her way out. She had to depend on Calisto to do that for him
self. And God, she hoped that if he did begin to remember or question … if he did begin to see the holes in the stories around him … that he would just somehow know he couldn’t tell anyone until he had it all figured out.

  Would Affonso kill Calisto for remembering, for knowing the truth?

  Probably.

  Because if Calisto did remember, and he did know the truth, he wouldn’t let Emma go. He wouldn’t let his child be raised by another man—a man he despised. There was no doubt in her mind that Affonso knew it, too.

  And if Affonso thought Calisto would try to take what belonged to him, he would end it before he even got the chance to try.

  But she knew Calisto, probably far better than even Affonso did.

  He wasn’t a stupid man.

  So, Emma held onto faith and hope.

  Just a little bit of each.

  It was enough to get her out of bed each morning, and keep moving forward. But it didn’t give her much else.

  “And another thing I have been considering,” Affonso said.

  Emma twisted her hands in her lap, wishing her husband would just move on with his damn day and leave her be. Hadn’t the entire morning been enough?

  “What’s that?” she asked.

  “Have you considered a name for the baby yet?” Affonso asked.

  Oh.

  She quickly looked away from the cold eyes surveying her.

  “Well?” he demanded after a long moment.

  “I had a couple of names.”

  “I suppose we can’t use my name, now that you’ve given it to the dead one.”

  Emma visibly recoiled, but quickly straightened her back and schooled her features. “We could, but I would prefer to let Affonso Jr. keep his name as his own, if that’s fine with you.”

  Affonso sighed. “Fine, let him keep it. But this one …”

  “I thought Nazio might be good for a middle name, after your father. I know his full name was Ignazio, but everyone just calls him Nazio, even now when they talk about him.”

  That quieted her husband instantly.

  Emma figured that was a good thing, and decided to see how much further she could push him on the subject, and maybe she could actually get what she wanted for once.

  After all, Affonso wasn’t that hard to figure out.