Daughter of the Mafia

Not a Family Reunion: Part 13

Jaci rolled her window down and mimed a phone to her ear. "I'll call you!"

Amanda nodded, chewing on her lower lip. "I'll be waiting! What if Ricky asks me? What am I supposed to say? Do I tell him the truth?"

That knot of anxiety in Jaci's stomach hardened into a rock. She hadn't gotten the chance to tell him. And Ricky had to know the truth. "No. I'll find a way to talk to him."

"We've got to go," her father said, giving her a split second warning before the window rolled up and the car pulled away from the curb.

Jaci fell back in her seat and stared out the windshield, a bit shaken. They'd done it. She'd made her getaway. Now what? She couldn't bear to think of her mother's reaction when she found out Jaci had gone, nor of Ricky's for the next few hours when he didn't know the truth. Nausea rolled up in her gut, rising to the back of her throat. She swallowed it down. She was here for a reason, and their temporary hurt feelings were necessary sacrifices.

The thought jolted her. Who was she, that she was willing to consider other people's feelings as collateral damage?

She understood Joey a little more.

Jaci didn't say a word at first as her father drove them through the downtown area and out of the city. She wasn't sure what to say, especially with Finn—if that was really his name—sitting there in the car with them.

Finally, when they had driven in a stifled silence for nearly twenty minutes, Jaci ventured, "Where are we going?"

"My place," her father said. He looked at her, then reached over and squeezed her hand. "You are here with me. I can hardly believe it," he said, switching to Spanish.

Jaci squeezed his hand back, her body relaxing slightly as the cadence of the familiar language washed over her. "I am worried what Mom will think," she admitted, continuing in Spanish. At least it gave her a sense of privacy, though for all she knew, Finn was fluent in twenty different languages.

"Can't you tell her?" her father asked.

Jaci considered this option at least once an hour. "No. I don't know how she would react, and I'm worried she might tell the wrong people. You're not exactly safe, are you?"

He gave a chuckle. "Nobody will catch me until I want to be found."

Jaci didn't respond. That was also part of the problem. What if her mom begged for him to come home, even if it meant incarceration, even if it meant facing the music? She pulled out her phone, anxious to call Amanda and give her an update. She wished she could call Ricky.

"But you are probably right," her father said, continuing their conversation. "The fewer people who know, the better."

Jaci glanced behind her to the boy in the backseat. He sat directly behind her father's chair, staring out the window at the scenery as it flew by. "And who is he?" she asked. "Does he work for you?"

"He is the son of a comrade. You will meet his father soon."

That statement sparked Jaci's curiosity. So she wasn't the only child to have a father involved in this craziness. How did that affect Finn? Was he actually spending time with his father? She found herself eager to corner him and ask him questions.

Another half an hour passed before her father turned off of the busier streets and into what looked like a residential area. These apartments were not as well kept as the hotels and apartments in Zürich, and some of them showed signs of life, like potted plants in the windowsills and clothes lines stretched between buildings, desperate to take advantage of the sunny day in spite of the colder temperature.