Brutal Husband (Brutal Hearts #3)

Chapter 24

24

Nero

T he girl is so thin that she barely weighs anything in my arms. Her mother is sobbing as she takes her daughter from me and sinks down onto the ground with her.

She rocks Harriet back and forth as tears run down her face. “I knew you would come home. I knew you would, baby girl. I’ve waited night and day for you.”

Rieta is staring at me in shock, tendrils of hair blowing against her parted lips. She looks more beautiful than ever. Her pregnancy is making her glow, and maybe I’m just so starved for my woman that I can’t get enough of her.

Annie looks up at me. “How did you find her? Where?”

That’s a long story that I suppose I’ll have to tell the police. No doubt they’ll be angry and suspicious that I went off on my own to track Harriet down instead of turning over what I knew about the disappearance to them. I had to do it myself because it required me to impersonate my brother, and because Harriet was so well hidden that I don’t think the police would have been able to get to her. The conditions in which she was being kept were horrendous. There were a handful of other children as well. They were taken to a hospital by men I can trust, but I wanted to bring Harriet home myself.

“She was in a bad place. I tracked her down through my brother’s contacts.”

Just two sentences to describe a horrific process. I located men who knew me before I knew Luca, and we worked day and night to track down the right people who knew my brother, Costa, and men like them, and persuaded them to tell us what they knew. Persuading them was a violent, blood-soaked process, but it got us the answers we sought.

Harriet reaches out of the blanket and grasps her mother’s hand. She’s been drugged, and she’s lost weight, but I can tell she’s a fighter. She’s going to be all right. When she asked where I was taking her, I told her I was taking her home, and she replied she was glad because her mom would be worried. After all she’s been through, she was most concerned that her mom was upset.

I know I look like him, but I’m not the man who took you, I assured her. I was surprised Harriet didn’t take one look at me and start screaming.

I know you’re not. Your eyes aren’t dead like his. Did he sometimes pretend to be Mrs. Lombardi’s husband? I saw him around, and I didn’t like him very much.

Yes, sweetheart. He did. After a while, I didn’t like him either.

“Where’s your brother now?” Annie asks.

“He’s dead.”

She stares at me, perplexed. “But why did you do this? You should have gone to the police.”

I look at Rieta. Only Rieta. “I had to make up for the things my brother has done.”

Will she understand why I had to abandon her yet again to make things right? I meant what I said in that note. I know I don’t deserve her forgiveness for any of this.

Annie’s expression turns cold. “I think you’re lying to me. I think you were afraid the police were going to find out you had something to do with this.”

“Mom, no.”

The voice is so quiet that I almost don’t hear Harriet.

Annie cups her face. “Don’t try to talk, baby. I’m going to get you inside.”

But Harriet won’t be silenced. “Nero didn’t do anything wrong. It was all Luca.”

“How do you know? They’re identical. I can’t tell the difference.”

“Mom, the man who took me away and the man who came to rescue me didn’t look anything alike. I could see it in their eyes. That man was so cold, like frozen metal, but this man is warm and nice. Look at him.”

Annie casts me a wary glance. “This man can look cold as well. I’ve seen him in this street many times looking so arrogant and aloof. Who’s to say he’s not switching it on and off?”

“That wasn’t Nero,” Rieta tells her. “I thought it was, but Luca was impersonating my husband.”

“You couldn’t tell the difference between the two men either?”

Rieta shakes her head, looking so ashamed of herself that it hurts me. “I should have been able to, but I didn’t.”

“Ours was an arranged marriage,” I tell Annie. “Rieta barely had time to get to know me before Luca replaced me. It’s not her fault.”

“I still should have known.” Tears roll down Rieta’s cheeks, and she wipes them away. “I know it all sounds far-fetched, but Luca has done terrible things, and he was trying to hide in plain sight by sending Nero away and pretending to be my husband.”

“He’s done some of the worst things that a person can do, that’s for sure.” Annie frowns, thinking, and then she glances at me. “If… If you’re telling me the truth, and you never hurt my baby, then…thank you.”

“I’m just glad she’s home safe.”

Annie gathers up her daughter and carries her inside the house, and we hear her calling 911 and asking for police and an ambulance as she closes the door.

Then we turn to each other.

Rieta gazes at me with huge eyes, as if she’s afraid I’m going to vanish in a puff of smoke. Gesturing at Harriet’s house, all she asks brokenly is, “How did you do this? I thought she was dead.”

“I remembered what Costa said, that Luca took her away, so I thought there might be a chance. I gathered men I could trust, and we looked for her. I had to do some unpleasant things that I’m sure will give me nightmares, but I won’t regret any of it. It’s all worth it now that Harriet is home.” I take Rieta’s face in my hands. “And because I can come home to you.”

Rieta is choked up, but she manages to get the words out. “You’re really home? You’re not going to leave me again?”

“I’m not going anywhere unless you want me to.”

“I don’t want you to,” she says urgently.

“Then I’m not going anywhere. I promise. I can’t make up for all of Luca’s wrongs against you, but I will spend the rest of my life trying, if you let me.”

She seizes my wrists. “I don’t blame you for anything that Luca did to me. That was him, not you. I don’t know how I ever confused the two of you. Like Harriet, I should have been able to tell the difference right away.”

I smile sadly. “Don’t be so hard on yourself, cara mia . He fooled me as well. I wanted family so badly that I was blind to how Luca intended to replace me.”

“Can you forgive me for killing your only family? He was still your brother.”

I press my forehead against hers, feeling not one drop of malice toward her. “If you hadn’t done what you did, I would have died in that prison. You saved me.”

“Can we go home?”

“Please,” I breathe. “It’s all I want.” I also need to get cleaned up. It’s been a rough couple of days.

We go inside our home and head upstairs to the master bathroom. I kiss her as she undresses me, making her smile against my mouth as she fumbles with the buttons and zippers.

Standing under the hot spray, I hold her naked body against mine and rock her in my arms. “What did I miss? Tell me everything”

Rieta smiles. “Only me throwing up at all hours of the day and night. The nausea comes in waves, but I’ve read that it will pass soon. I’ll have my first scan in a couple of weeks.”

“Thank God I didn’t miss the first scan. I want to be here for everything from now on.”

“Family means a lot to you, doesn’t it?” she says, tracing my lips with her fingertip.

“Family who truly loves me? It’s everything I’ve ever wanted.”

“I love you,” Rieta says, tracing the daisy tattoo on my arm while gazing up at me with sparkling eyes.

I breathe in sharply. “You do?”

She nods, smiling. “Me and this baby. I think they know their daddy is home. I feel so warm in my belly.”

I get down on my knees under the spray and kiss her stomach. “I’m home, baby.” I stand up and press a kiss to Rieta’s lips. “I’m home, Mama.”

Rieta strokes my hair back, and her touch feels like forgiveness, love, and safety, all wrapped up together.

Suddenly, her expression grows serious. “The police are going to come after you,” she tells me. “Whatever it takes to keep you out of jail, I’ll do it. I’m not going to lose you again.”

As Rieta predicted, the police show up at our door that very night, and they’re full of questions about how I found Harriet and brought her home.

They take my statement, and I give them a more or less truthful version that leaves out the names of the men who helped me.

The police don’t leave for hours, and I can tell that they’re highly suspicious about my involvement in Harriet’s disappearance. I expect to see them again soon, and I’m right.

The police are back the following morning.

I’m alone as I speak to them in the living room. As much as I’m grateful for Rieta’s promise to keep me out of jail however she can, I’d rather she didn’t go through the stress of speaking with the police while she’s pregnant.

“This morning we found remains at the property where you located the missing children. There wasn’t much left except teeth, and we matched those to Luca Lombardi’s dental records from a few years ago. I’m sorry, Mr. Lombardi.”

The detective doesn’t sound very sorry. In fact, his eyes are boring into mine, hoping to uncover whatever I’m hiding from him.

“It’s no loss to me. My brother and I were estranged most of our lives. I suppose his associates turned on him.” I put the remains there myself. It was too risky having them in the back garden.

The police go over and over my statements and movements again and again. For a while they focus on Paul Shields being a guest at my wedding and the fact that several people saw me leave with him. I’m sure they’d like to charge me with his death, only they don’t have any evidence. In fact, I think they’re so frustrated they’re unable to arrest anyone in Harriet’s disappearance that they’d like to charge me with something. Anything. But they’ve got nothing on me.

Or so I think.

“Have you ever put your hands on a woman in anger, Mr. Lombardi?”

“Of course not.” The lie prickles my conscience. I put my hands on Rieta in anger several times, and I regret every single occasion. Rieta has chosen to keep this matter private, and I have no wish to discuss it with the police. I’ll spend the rest of my life making up for it.

The detective seems to pick up on my guilty conscience. “Are you sure about that, Mr. Lombardi?”

“Do you want to tell me what you’re really asking, or shall we keep playing guessing games?”

“We have a witness who claims that you’re involved in the trafficking of children, and when they confronted you about it, you strangled them almost to the point of unconsciousness. Is that true?”

I burst out laughing. “I have no idea what you’re talking about or who this witness is. Someone delusional, no doubt.”

The detective reaches into a briefcase for a manila folder and lays out a series of photographs on the coffee table. “So you never broke into a woman’s house in the middle of the night, shouted at her, threatened her, and left these marks on her neck?”

The photographs are close-ups of a woman’s neck. Even though they’re cropped at the chin and the collarbone, I recognize who it is right away.

“A witness?” There’s an exclamation of outrage from the hallway, and Rieta comes marching in. She must have been listening in on the interview.

“You’d better not be talking about who I think you’re talking about.” Rieta’s furious gaze lands on the photos on the coffee table, and she says something that you should never say to two detectives, especially with as much vehemence as she injects into the words.

“I’ll kill her.”