Rebecca Downhill (Becca) has known nothing in her life but a strict father who is involved in businesses with the Italian mafia in NY, an absent mother who has taught her to be obedient and fulfill her duties towards the family, and a twelve years o...
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"Your father promised he would stop hurting us, that we would be a family. And I believed him. I guess it was my silly hope and trust the good in people before anything. But I was not wrong about Lucas," she says and raises her eyes to me, smiling, pleased with herself.
I flinch, gasp, and stop breathing altogether.
"Lucas?" I whisper. "What is his connection with all these?" I ask, almost afraid of the things I might find out, following mom with my glare as she's now pacing around the patio.
My lips are trembling with fear growing in my heart.
Mom turns around and looks down at me with a wide smile. She scoops my cheek in her warm hand while I urge her with my eyes to keep going.
"I had been trying for years to find a way out for you. I had to take you out of that house before you were completely broken and unable to heal and live a normal life. And the opportunity came at that charity reception, four years ago."
"What?" I mumble, shocked at the raising plot behind my relationship with Lucas.
"I knew Lucas before that night. Not very well personally, but he was highly thought of by people we both knew. I approached him after seeing him eyeing you the entire evening. It was as if you attracted his eyes like a magnet all along, no matter which side of the room you were standing in. He had the same sparkle in his eyes like Marce used to have when seeing me, with a goofy smile plastered on his face. It was really cute to see a hard, fearful man like Lucas lost in awe at your sight," she chuckles, her eyes still filled with tears.
The admiration she has in those eyes when talking about Lucas is mind-blowing.
"I called and met him in his office a few days later. He was really surprised to see me, and... well, I went straight to business. I asked him what he really wanted from you, and it didn't shock me with his straightforward answer. Boy, he meant business! It didn't take me long to understand that he was your way out. He was your destiny, although you were both oblivious to it. I knew your father very well, and I knew exactly the plan to smoothly convince him to let you go and even be happy with it. It was all about money to him, so it was damn easy. I told Lucas the plan I was sure would work, and he agreed blindly. He was already falling for you," she says, smiling lovely back at me. "But then Marce came along, asking me again to get back to him, and I refused. What was the use after so many years? His request did nothing but grow the rivalry in the mafia. And wars started again and your father... being your father..."
I stood up abruptly. I can't concentrate anymore. I know every event after that, and even much more.
Actually, I lost concentration on mom the moment she told me about Lucas. The longing for him tenth folded on the spot and I even feel choking with missing him and loving him a hundred times more.
"Mamma... I have to go," I tell her.
"Rebecca..." she whispers, taken by surprise.
"I'm sorry, Mamma, I have to find Lucas. I have to see him," I say, seeing her eyes softening and I know she understands me.
