She Discovers Their Secret, She Chooses Their World novel · Chapter 13 of 24

Chapter 13: The Lie Marco Punished

Sergio told me half of it over breakfast, and it was the wrong half.

We sat at the long kitchen table, the three of us, with eggs and coffee.

The white box sat on the chair beside me where I could see it.

Nobody ate.

"Your mother was the old don's woman," Sergio said. "For three years, in secret. He was married then, and he hid her from the council."

"He was my father," I said.

Sergio turned his cup a quarter turn on its saucer.

"I can't say that to you yet."

"You can't, or you won't?"

"There is a law I have to read to you with the council in the room," he said. "If I say it here, it's a promise I've broken. Give me until Friday."

"Friday is five days away."

"I know."

Marco looked at his plate.

He had not looked at me directly since the cellar, and I did not know why.

A phone buzzed on the counter, and Sergio read the screen and stood.

"One of the old men wants me at his house," he said. "He heard what Elsa did at the table, and he wants to know if I'm still fit to sit in the chair."

"Fit?"

"It's talk. I'll be back by dark."

He kissed my forehead, and he left.

The front door shut, and the car went down the drive, and Marco and I sat in the kitchen with the box between us.

"Give it to me," he said.

"Why?"

"Because Elsa wrapped it, and I don't trust what she wrapped."

"It's my mother's."

"Élise."

I picked it up and held it against my chest.

"I'll bring it to you after I've looked," I said.

"No. Now."

I carried the box up the stairs with his steps behind me, and I shut my bedroom door in his face and locked it.

I sat on the floor with my back against the bed and lifted the tissue out.

There was nothing under it but a scrap of card in Elsa's looping hand.

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