by M. D. Melai
“Well, I am,” I said, not holding back my shock.
“Every time something happens to you, whether from something I did or something someone else did, I take it personal. I blame myself and ask myself a million questions—running every scenario in my mind. I always wonder if there was something I could have done to prevent whatever happened. So… yes, I can see where Lucas is coming from, even if it doesn’t make complete sense to you,” he paused and looked over at me, “it does to me.
“We feel responsible, because we’re supposed to be there for you—protecting you and never letting anything happen. So when something does, we beat ourselves up over it—more than you ever could.”
I didn’t know what else to say after that. Emilio made sense. Was I still upset with Lucas? Yes. Did I forgive him? Yes.
“Thank you, Emilio,” I said as I turned back in my chair, took his hand, and squeezed it.
“You’re welcome,” he replied, pulling my hand to his chest and holding it there, not letting my hand go.
***
The rest of the ride had been quiet, and when we arrived home, we both said goodnight and I crawled into bed.
I thought I was going to have a hard time sleeping with everything that had been swirling around in my head, but as soon as my head hit the pillow, I was out.
The next morning the smell of coffee, and Violet, greeted me when I came down the stairs. So, of course, I had to recount the events of the night before, and thankfully when I was finishing up, Dante and Emilio were coming down the stairs.
“Benito and Lucas are headed over soon,” Dante said as he poured himself and Emilio a cup of coffee.
“Why are they coming over?” I asked.
About that time, a knock came at the door. Benito and Lucas both walked right in.
Benito walked right in and said hello to everyone, whereas Lucas lingered in our sight, but stayed by the stairs with his hands in his pockets.
“We’re going to go over the surveillance video from last night. We want to see if we can retrace James’s steps,” Emilio said as he walked over to me and bent down. “Forgive him, okay?” he whispered in my ear, before motioning for Dante and Benito to follow him.
“See you downstairs in a minute,” Emilio said as he passed Lucas.
Violet got up from beside me and stretched. She was trying to be inconspicuous, but she was failing.
“Well, I’m headed upstairs to get ready. Don’t forget, we’re meeting Elle for brunch this morning.” She patted my leg and gave me a reassuring smile, before heading to her room.
Lucas slowly made his way over to me and sat down beside me. He gave me the respectful amount of space he knew I needed.
“I’m—,” he started.
“I know, I forgive you,” I said sincerely, looking him in the eyes. “Emilio and I had a long talk on the way home last night, and he helped me realize a few things. While I’m still upset that you lied, he helped me realize why. Just please don’t do it again, okay?”
“I promise, I won’t,” he said as his blue eyes sparkled, and his body language became more relaxed. “You know everything now, Lil. I have no more secrets from you.”
“You better not.” I smiled as I stood up. “Anyways, you better get downstairs and help them before they come looking for you. And if I’m not ready when Elle gets here she will leave me,” I laughed before I leaned in, kissed Lucas on the cheek, and started to walk off.
“Lil,” he called out, and when I turned to face him, his face was soft and sincere. “Not only will I promise to always tell you the truth, but I will always be there when you need me. I love you, Lil. Always.”
“I know,” I said as I smiled at him, turned, and started to walk up the stairs.
After I got ready for the day, Violet and I sat at the dining room table waiting for Elle to come and pick us up. Benito and Dante had made their way upstairs, and I was telling them what had happened last night, stopping at when I made it into Lucas’s building safely—the rest was unnecessary.
Emilio and Lucas joined us not too long after they were done going over the last of the footage. Emilio seemed suspicious about something, but Lucas was more pensive than I had seen him before. His eyes shifted back and forth as he was trying to make sense of whatever he was thinking.
“Lucas, is everything okay man?” I heard Dante ask.
“I’m not sure,” he responded.
Benito stood up and looked at Lucas.
“What is it?” he asked.
“It’s not possible, but I swear I saw…,” Lucas said, trying to piece whatever he saw together.
“Who is it? Who did you see?” Violet chimed in.
“It was…,” Lucas said, before shaking his head of the thought. We all waited for him to finish, but it looked like he wasn’t going to.
We all paused as we heard the kitchen door shut, and then the clicking of heels heading our direction.
“It’s just Elle,” I said. All of our eyes were still on Lucas.
Just then, Lucas’s eyes widened—looking as though he had just seen a ghost. Violet’s gasps followed, and I quickly turned around at the same time Benito had.
“Adela…,” Benito whispered as a slender, middle aged, gorgeous blonde stood there, looking back at all of us. Elle was standing not too far behind her.
“Hey, Benny,” Adela said as a cautious smile spread across her face.
Chapter 20
We could have heard a pin drop in the living room as we all stared at Adela Heinrich Dapprima standing there in front of us—in the flesh.
This was impossible. Adela was dead—everyone knew that. Benito saw her lifeless body, and even Viktor alleged to her being dead. How could this be?
My hands were still clasped over my mouth when I finally saw Benito take a step toward her. She wasn’t too far from him, and in two strides, he was standing in front of her. His hand reached up and touched her cheek, softly grazing it up and down.
Then Adela reached up and grabbed his hand and held it in hers as her emerald eyes, just like mine, lovingly stared straight into his.
“This…,” Benito started to speak. He shook his head as he took as step back from her and glared. “This isn’t real. It’s a trick.”
Violet, Dante, Lucas, Emilio, and I watched attentively as Benito took another step back from Adela. His face looked disgruntled, and I swear I watched smoke shoot from his ears.
“I don’t know what game you’re playing, but it’s a cruel joke. Who are you?” Benito asked. He was trying to contain his emotions but failed miserably as his voice betrayed him.
Adela bit her lip and started to move toward Benito. With each step she took forward, he would take one back.
“Benny,” she said guardedly. “It’s me, Adela.”
“Do not call me that,” he said. “Only one other person in this world called me that, and you’re not her.”
“It’s me—I’m her,” she said calmly.
“You’re not her! She’s dead!” he screamed this time. “Get out!”
Adela’s eyes widened as Dante moved to Benito’s side, placed his hand on Benito’s shoulder, and tried to calm him down.
Benito was in shock, and was unwilling to accept that Adela was, in fact, standing in front of him. For some reason, I knew it was her. I hadn’t talked to her, touched her, or even hugged her, but I knew it—I could feel it. The pull she had on me, and something about her voice calmed me. It was like my subconscious was screaming out for me to remember.
Adela took another step toward Benito, but this time, he didn’t move. He stood there and let her come all the way to him. She lifted both of her hands to his cheeks and held his face, making him look into her eyes. He stiffened under her touch and sucked in a quick breath.
Watching the two of them interact was painful. Benito was confused and hurting, and all I wanted to do was fix it. But no one in the room knew how to do that.
All of a sudden, Adela started humming. She was leading
into a song, and before I knew it, she was singing the lyrics.
My love, there's only you in my life
The only thing that's bright
My first love,
You're every breath that I take
You're every step I make
And I, I want to share
All my love with you
No one else will do
With just those lyrics, Benito’s body started to relax, and Adela pressed her forehead to his. He breathed a rugged breath, before pulling her in to him.
“Do you remember that song? Do you remember how I used to sing it to you when it was only the two of us,” she softly whispered in his ear. “It’s me Benny, it’s really me.”
***
Violet had fixed everyone coffee, and we were all huddled around the dining room table—Benito on one end, Adela on the other, and the rest of us in the middle. His face was serious, but his eyes were full of both weariness and happiness.
The shock was slowly wearing off an hour later. We had called my mother to come over as soon as possible, telling her some of what was going on. She sounded just as shocked as we were that Adela was alive, and it displayed on her face as soon as she walked in and visually saw her.
And Adela had promised that she would explain everything, but first she wanted everyone to be shock ridden and fully able to comprehend everything she was going to explain. She said she was ready to tell her part of the story.
We were all wondering how Elle was involved in this equation as well. She had walked in with Adela, and had been sticking beside her the whole time. At first, we thought it was a coincidence, but as the time has passed, we knew it wasn’t. The way she talked to Adela and looked at her—it was like they had known each other for a very long time. A ping of jealously hit me when I finally realized it.
I tapped my finger on the edge of my glass, not able to look up at her. For the last hour, while everyone else was coming to, I was focused on the fact that my birth mother had abandoned me, just like Benito had. How could they do this to me? Benito gave me away, and Adela ran from me. I must have been an awful child for both parents to not want to stick around—no matter the circumstances they were facing. I had already forgiven Benito—he had been going through so much. As for Adela, the only thing that I could hope for was that there was a good explanation.
Adela took a deep breath as soon as she drank the last of her coffee. Violet sat up straight, Emilio and Dante sat back in their chairs, Lucas leaned in, and my mother and I stayed frozen in place.
“I guess I should start from the beginning,” Adela said. “But before I start, how much do you all know? I’m not sure what to explain and what not to.”
“Well,” I said, speaking for the first time, still focusing on my cup in front of me. “We know about the trust fund, and how it is in my name. Oh, and that your father is trying to kill us all.”
“Okay,” she said.
I peeked up for a moment and saw her shaking her head, like she was trying to gather her thoughts.
“Okay,” she said again. “Before I start, I’m asking all of you to please hold any questions that you might have until I’m done. There is a lot of information, and hopefully when I’m done, you will understand everything.”
I looked up to meet Benito’s eyes. He nodded at me, silently telling me to sit there and listen. I nodded back to him, letting him know I would do that for him.
“You may proceed,” Benito said.
“I inherited the trust fund on my eighteenth birthday. My grandparents, who live in Germany, set it up when I was very young. Elle told me that you, Lily, met my Oma on your trip,” she said as she looked my way and smiled. I caught a glimpse of it from the corner of my eye. “Anyways…since I was marrying into the Dapprima family, my father asked me for the money. He said I didn’t need it since I was marrying into money. He was forceful about it, telling me he needed it more than me. My Oma had warned me that it would happen. We all knew my father was greedy, and that was why my grandparents had given it to me. They wanted to make sure my father couldn’t touch it. My father was right—I didn’t need the money, but I wasn’t going to relent it.
“When Benny and I got married, he calmed down for a bit about the money. When I found out that I was pregnant, I had mentioned that I was thinking about putting the money into the baby’s name.
“It would be an understatement to say that my father didn’t much care for that idea,” Adela continued. “The trust fund was set up that if anything happened to me, then it would default back to him.
“That was when the rumors started to circulate, and Mariela, Faith and Nikolas’s mother, told me my father was planning on killing me to make sure that he got the money. He didn’t know it, but I had already transferred the money to Liliana. As soon as she breathed her first breath, the money was hers.”
I watched as Benito’s eyes grew big as he stared at her.
“I know,” Adela said, looking at him. “I told you I did it later, but I didn’t. I wasn’t sure how much time I would have, so I made sure that Viktor could never touch that money.
“When Liliana was almost two, things started to get really bad. Massimo had already told my father that we were family, but that didn’t mean that he would be helping out with any of my father’s business adventures. He explained that the Dapprima’s hands were clean, for the most part, and he wanted them to stay like that. My father started running out of money, and he needed it then, not later.
“There was one day in particular that I’ll never forget. I had taken Liliana over to see Mariela to spend some time with her. She mentioned that Viktor was starting to make serious threats and that I needed to watch myself. She was scared for my life.
“That’s when I went to Massimo and told him I needed to leave. I needed to do something, and I was afraid that my father was going to take out all three of us if I didn’t disappear. That’s when Massimo helped me.
“The two of you deserved to live a long, beautiful life, not one on the run. As the plans fell into motion, I begged Massimo to protect Liliana and to raise her as his own. I knew Viktor would come after her one day. He promised he would protect both of you with his life.
“I tried to give everyone enough time, making it to where she couldn’t access it until she was twenty-one. I thought by then maybe my father’s money troubles would be over with, and he wouldn’t be a threat anymore. I never anticipated Viktor would come at you all so strongly,” she said, taking a breath.
Everything made sense now. I was twenty-one when my father had moved me to New Jersey. It reminded me of a conversation I had had with Emilio when he said I couldn’t have been protected in Toronto. That was why I was moved to New Jersey—closer to my brothers and Emilio. There was more manpower, and now I knew exactly why my father had done it. I had instantly become a target the second my twenty-first birthday came around.
Adela began again. “It was shortly after my conversation with Massimo that I slowly started having my blood drawn out and put away for safe keeping. My death needed to look real—be real almost. In the end, I had drawn out enough to make it look like I would have bled out—if the gunshot hadn’t killed me first.
“While all of this was going on, I recruited two of my father’s most trusted friends, Daniel and Anita Jones. I knew my father would trust them—trust their judgment. They were going to be the ones to ‘kill me,’” she said with a glance towards Lucas. “I knew I could trust them. They were amazing people, and I loved them so very much. If anyone could help me, then it was them.”
I looked up at Lucas’s face as it became pale, and his breathing had stopped at the realization that he was half-right when it came to the truth. His parents were involved with Adela’s death, but they weren’t the ones who had actually killed her.
“See, I told you,” I mouthed at him when our eyes met. “They were good people.”
“A week before my plan was to take, Liliana turned two,” Adela continued, “and
on her birthday was when I had mentioned to Benito and my father that I had planned on placing the trust fund in her name very soon. My father was outraged, and I knew I didn’t have much more time.
“And just as I thought my father would do, he called Daniel and Anita into his office the next day. When he told them he needed me gone, they asked if they could be the ones to do it—explaining that I knew them, trusted them, and that I wouldn’t see it coming. The thing was, I already had. He gladly gave them the mission, which they accepted gratefully. Everything had fallen into place.
“On the night of my death, I asked Benito if we could go out for ice cream. It was one of Liliana’s favorite things to do, and I wanted one last good memory with them. I had to beg Benito, and he finally gave in. I held Liliana all day and all that evening. Do you remember, Benny?”
“Yes, and trust me, that was not unordinary,” Benito said, giving her a small smile as he remembered back to those times.
“On our way back to the apartment Daniel and Anita met us. I sent Benito home with Liliana, and I’m sure you know what happened when you went with him. At least I hope you told her,” she said as she looked at Benito. He nodded, and she continued. “But on my end, as soon as Benito was out of sight, Daniel and Anita pulled out the blood that I had given them and we poured it all over the concrete and on me. Anita splattered it on my face and chest. When I knew enough time had passed, Daniel fired the shot into the air, and I ‘collapsed’ into his arms. They carried me to their car and loaded me into their trunk. They were about to shut it, when I saw Benito come into sight. It was the worst moment of my life, but I knew if they were ever going to be protected, it had to be when I wasn’t around.
“They drove me straight to a motel, and I got cleaned up. After that, I went straight to the airport and started my new life in Palermo with the extended Dapprimas,” she said as she took a look at Benito, Elle, and me.
“So, you were there when I was?” I asked.
“I know it may sound creepy, but I ran behind you every day you were there. I had to be near you, making sure you were okay,” she said with a smile. “Bianca made sure it was you at first, and after she confirmed it, I rarely let you out of my sight.”
