Page 67 of Hers To Keep
“You know me so well, my darling sister.” He moves toward me, his gaze following my shaky movements as he rounds me coming to stand so closely behind me, whispering scornfully in my ear. “Gianna Marchesi killed herself because of your father’s betrayal.”
My heart drops stunned by his remark as I turn abruptly to face him. He takes advantage of my confusion to push me back as I falter onto the couch beside me. He rushes over to me, his face so close to mine as I hold in a breath afraid of what he’ll do. I close my eyes, silently pleading someone to come find me and save me from whatever is about to ensue. I never feared Roman. Even as a child he was always broody and indifferent toward me, but he would somehow keep us safe. Until he left that is. But now as I blankly stare at him, I don’t recognize the eyes staring back at me.
He murdered someone. It may have been his alcoholic, deadbeat, criminal father, who may or may not have deserved it, but nonetheless he took a life, and I know that does something irreparable to one’s soul.
I feel his hot breath against my cheek as he whispers. “She slit her wrists and drowned in a pool of her own blood. Such a young girl, only sixteen, and her life was stripped away at the hands of your parents. What kind of person does that make you? The daughter of two ruthless murderers.” My eyes burn with tears slipping away but I refuse to open them. “The person who found her, wasn’t your father, like everyone believed.”My father found her?He never mentioned any of this. He said he left when she found outand wanted nothing to do with him. How easily everyone lies. Roman pauses moving in closer to me. “It was her brother Franco Marchesi who discovered her lifeless body.” I open my eyes, looking at him, a taunting smirk on his face as he watches my mind reeling from the bomb he dropped.
“Yes, another thing your darling mother failed to mention was that her connection to Gianna was much stronger than just a simple acquaintance. How do you think they knew where Gianna would be? How do you think they so effortlessly planned for it all to happen?” I look up at him afraid of what he’s going to say next, not sure I can take any more revelations. “Your mother was Gianna Marchesi’s stepsister, and Franco was her stepbrother.”
I wish I didn’t believe him, but what would Roman gain from lying to me? I know nothing of my mother’s childhood. She made me believe her parents kicked her out when they found out she was pregnant, but I now know I should have never believed anything she said.
“How do you know all of this, Roman?” I ask, afraid of his response.
He steps back, moving to sit at an armchair across from me leisurely crossing his legs as he leans back. “For the last six years I’ve been working for Wesley Servite. From the moment I left Providence. Wesley found me in an underground fight club, near death after a weeklong bender. I had fractured my skull, broken three ribs, and shattered my left arm from a fight. He found me outside, thrown out in the back of the warehouse and took me to his club. There, I was treated and for the foreseeable future indebted to him. I did his dirty work, the shit his precious Horsemen were too weak to follow through with. You’d be repulsed by the things I’ve seen, what I’ve done, but Servite gave me a second chance. To finally do something with my life instead of being the son of a deadbeat alcoholic.”
I scoff, rolling my eyes at the audacity of his comment. “Hemade you into a criminal, a murderer, Roman. How is that any better?”
“Because I did what I did to the sinners who deserved it. They plague this earth, Scarlett, pollute this town with their sinful actions, their depraved thoughts. They do it all and get away with it because of the power they hold. No one should hold that much power. The pride, greed, gluttony, envy, all of it is intoxicating and corrupting. Much like your boy toy Ace, the one thing I never realized was that the man who taught me that, was the worst of them all. Wesley Servite was the ultimate sinner, the worst of his kind, and so my loyalties flipped. I found a new man to guide me, to follow his orders.”
“Who?” I ask him, confused. “You can’t possibly mean my father.”
He shakes his head. “Franco Marchesi. A man who grew up as a part of this world in Hillcrest Hills and was sent away by his father as a prepubescent boy because of his violent tendencies. He’s a psychopath if I ever met one, but he’s never once physically hurt a soul. The eldest son of Gabriel Marchesi, part of one of the most dangerous crime families in the entire country, Franco showed me the evil that Wesley Servite and those around him are guilty of—the drugs, the prostitution, the organized crime. Servite is the mob itself.”
I nod, taking in all the information that isn’t new to me. “But this Franco Marchesi, who is he? How did he get you involved?”
“I’m glad you asked. You see, since he was sent away at barely thirteen, Franco was able to take on a new identity when he returned. When he graduated from the military boarding school his father sent him to, he went on to graduate from Holland, and was determined to come back to Hillcrest Hills and rejoin the society that cast him out. But what he realized upon his arrival, was that his sister was gone, and once again his family had been exiled. Did anyone ever tell you about the fire that happened on Halloween night all those years ago?” Fuck. Not this shit again.That God awful story Stella once told us, why the school and all those around here were cursed. Of course it all has to lead back to that.
“1920. Where almost forty percent of the school’s population was killed, including the first-born sons of the five original founding families of Hillcrest Hills: the Servites, the Silvers, the Smoaks, the Prescotts and a fifth unknown member. There was a huge fire that was ruled an accident, but there’s always been a rumor that it was started by a member of the fifth family. They say that’s why they were exiled from the town and not brought in when the school was rebuilt, therefore erased from its history. No one, except of course for the founding families, even knows their surname.” I am surprised I remembered every detail of the old story.
“Yes, exactly. My if you aren’t all caught up on your Hillcrest Hills history,” he says mockingly.
And then it hits me, like it’s been dangling before me this whole time. The connection to the fifth family. My mother. Gianna. Franco. “Marchesi. That’s the name of the fifth family,” I mutter, however not sure if to myself or out loud.
“You’re quite intelligent, sis, not just a pretty face. I’m impressed. It’s apparently some sick romantic tragedy bullshit, it always is with these rich fuckers. Never just a simple misfortune. Point is that two of the grandsons of the founders fell in love with the same girl, the only granddaughter of the Marchesi family. The girl’s eldest brother started the fire to kill one of them, the one his sister truly loved, but in fact she’d already run off with him. The fire spread out of control and took him and the man he wanted for his sister. The Marchesis’ were then quietly exiled for the mass murder they caused. In 1990, they came back, richer, and more powerful than ever before. Gabriel Marchesi had now re-married the daughter of a prominent political family from the East Coast that secured his safe return, Evangeline Steele.”
Steele. As in Lilith Steele. “Lilith’s family?” I ask.
“Lilith’s mother.” A shiver runs through me at the sound of another voice behind me. A dark, deep, and shrilling voice I used to hear daily and now haunts my nightmares since that dreadful night.
Macallan.
Chapter
Thirty-Seven
SCARLETT
Fear is a strange emotion. It brings out the worst in some, yet others thrive off instilling it. The fast heartbeats, the unsteady breathing, the cold sweats, the aching chills, the hole it causes in your stomach that can only be filled by the soothing words of another. If you’re lucky.
It’s taunting, terrifying, and downright insulting.
It’s mocking, how the safety we may once have felt, the hope we may have just found, fools us into believing nothing will ever make us feel the wrath of all-consuming fear. That after the worst events we believed we could ever possibly face, there is still something much worse lurking around in the shadows, waiting to attack at the precise moment we feel a sense of peace.
Hope breeds eternal misery. Happiness breeds eternal discontent. But fear breeds eternal unease. The fear of the unknown, the fear of what’s to come, the fear of the truth.
I feel all of that right now. It floods my senses like nothing I’ve ever before experienced. The fear of once again hearing his voice,brings all the memories back to me. The horrendous feel of his hands on me, of his lips on mine.
“What, why are you here?” I stutter, standing and turning to face him. A wicked smirk appears on his face as I back away from him, hitting my back against Roman’s chest.