Chapter 173
Alcée
looked at her mother, “I’m right, aren’t I? I was Dad’s kid. You didn’t fudge
around with those DNA results but Alfio, he’s Panfilo’s. I couldn’t stop
thinking about everything Mercurio said to me when we were coming here. Dad was
a shitty businessman, but he had good gut instincts when it came to people. He
could read a room. It didn’t mean he responded appropriately to the room he was
reading but he knew what was going on. Tell the truth, Mom. Now.” “He overheard
me and Panfilo arguing one day and Panfilo said it’s my child.” Her
mother’s weepy voice called out. “We told him Panfilo as mad at his wife over
some child rearing differences and we thought he bought it but a few weeks
later we found out he tested Alcee for DNA. When I confronted him over it, told
him how the urologist confirmed his vasectomy failed, he said he didn’t believe
me when I gave him the excuse about Panfilo’s kid.““Dad wasn’t
my dad?” Alfio croaked out from the floor where Tito still kept him pinned.“All you
ever needed to do,” she looked at her mother with disgust, “was tell him the
truth and maybe, just maybe, my father wouldn’t have hated me. He hated me,
Mom. Do you get that? Your selfish greed made it so my own father couldn’t love
- me. If you’d told him the truth, but in his mind all he could see was your
betrayal.““Then he
would have hated Alfio!““But Alfio,
would have had Panfilo for his actual father. His father who clearly took a
risk and argued with you over his paternity with my father in the vicinity.
Tell me he didn’t want him. Tell me!““He did. He
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does,” Apollonia Mariani shot sad eyes to her son, “it’s all he’s ever wanted.
You were a miracle, Alfio. Panfilo got mumps when his son caught them when he
was two years old. He wasn’t completely sterile but pretty damn close. He and his
wife tried for years and couldn’t conceive. I found out I was pregnant when I
was barely four weeks along. I never missed a period, but I knew there was no
way it as Edgardo’s because he was in Italy. I flew to Italy to surprise him.
We made love and then when my next period was due, I told him I missed it. I lied
to all the doctors about the date of my last period. Even Panfilo didn’t know.
It was on your second birthday party Panfilo noticed.” “What did
he notice, Mom?” “Alfio and
his son Rocky from the ages of twelve to eighteen could have been twins. There’s
a seven–year age gap between the boys,” she wiped a tear off her cheek, “but if
you compare photos of them at those ages, it’s nearly impossible to tell them
apart. His wife never guessed but Panfilo knew. At the birthday party, Alfio
made a facial expression before diving into the pool, and he said it was like
looking in a mirror. He went off about how he should be allowed to parent his
own child. Your father walked in on the one sentence. I managed to twist things
around.” “Are you
still having an affair with Panfilo?““No.” She
shook her head, “I love him. I have loved him before my arranged marriage to
your father. I loved him after. However, I passed his son off as another man’s
and he never quite forgave me. He begged me more than once to let Alfio know
but I wouldn’t. I couldn’t. I knew your father was suspecting you, Alcee but we
held the evidence which proved you were his. If he didn’t go and test all the
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kids, then it was safe. I only wanted to keep my son safe.““You used
me as a scapegoat.““But we
proved you were his.““He hated
me anyway! He thinks you lied about the evidence. He thinks you fabricated it
somehow.““But I didn’t.
He tested you again after and was angrier still when it continued to prove you
were his. He was so sure he was right about what he overheard but it never dawned
on him it meant one of the boys.““Jesus
Christ, Mom.” Mercurio rubbed his face. He stared at her angrily, “is this guilt
then? This shit you’ve been trying to spout with Alcee?” “No. It’s
not guilt, Merc, it’s fear.” Alcee held her mother’s gaze, “if I’m out of the
country, married to someone else who would keep me hidden from Torq, I’d never
come back. She doesn’t want me around because she knows I’m the only one who
questions everything. Karolos Pavlidis is correct. Dad should have left the
family to me because I’m smarter than half of this room combined. I’m
brilliant. The more I dug, the more I was going to find out. Like Dad, I can
read a room. Unlike him, I also know how to add two plus two to get the
requisite four wherein he usually only gets three. He always misses something,
but I don’t.” She waved at Tito, “let him up.““Does
Panfilo’s wife know? Did she ever figure it out?” Michelo asked quietly from
the side of the room where he stood reeling. “No. She’s
so devoted to him she wouldn’t blame him for a sneaky fart.” Her mother said with
anger. “He was mine first and our fathers decided I was a better fit for
Edgardo. I found out Edgardo mentioned in passing he liked me, and it was their
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decision immediately. I did what a dutiful daughter did,” she shot Alcee an
angry glare, “and I married who I was supposed to marry.““You weren’t
a virgin?” Alcee pushed. “How’d you fake that?““Planned my
wedding to coincide with my period. I was routine and like clockwork. There was
blood everywhere. He was drunk enough I made it out like it hurt. I was
bleeding but he didn’t care. Your father on our honeymoon decided he didn’t
mind if I was bleeding and said it made him even manlier.” She rolled her eyes.“You hated
him,” Alcee said quietly.“I did in
the beginning. I grew to love him deeply. There is something to be said about a
man who treats you like you’re his obsession. He couldn’t get enough of me. He
wanted me with him all the time. He was possessively jealous and after a while
I found it thrilling but my heart belonged to another man too. I loved Panfilo’s
quiet adoration. He is gentle and kind to me. Your father was raw passion.
Panfilo is graceful and elegant. I loved them both. Then your father started to
change. He was angry all the time.”
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