“Carlo and Roland Ramsay sat down with Joseph Franks from Seattle. He was encouraging them to fight to the death in one of his tournament battles, winner take all. Neither of them wanted to do it the Seattle way, so Carlo and Roland agreed to negotiate. At that point, our family agreed to stop our relationship with the cartels, and the Ramsays turned over all of the documentation and counterfeiting to us. The town was divided fairly equally, but there was still a matter of blood spilt. Carlo’s brother had been killed, and he refused monetary compensation.”
Kate closes her eyes for a moment and then stands up. She moves to the bookcase behind the desk and reaches up to pull out a leather-bound book of Celtic mythology. She sets it down on the desk and opens it, revealing a piece of thin paper stuck in the middle.
Kate unfolds the paper, which is clearly labeled as an addition to the treaty between the Orsos and the Ramsays, and I catch a glimpse of the words “blood trade” and “compensation.”
“Along with the exchange of land and businesses,” Kate says, “there was one additional…well, let’s call it a swap. Cherice was one half of that swap.”
“Kate, you aren’t making sense,” I say, reaching for the paper.
Kate places her hand over the page, obscuring the words, and looks me in the eye.
“No one was supposed to find out,” she whispers. “It was supposed to never be spoken of again. That’s detailed in this document, too.”
“Find out what, Kate? Dammit, let me just read the damn thing!”
“When Cherice first came to dinner, I was going to tell you then, but I didn’t want to cause more stress in your life. You’d already been through so much, and I thought it would all work out. I thought it would balance everything. If you married, the head of the family would be an Orso, so…”
“I can’t marry her, Kate! She’s my fucking sister!”
“What? Oh, no. No, Nataniele. She’s not your sister. You don’t understand.”
I shake my head, and my mouth opens and closes a couple of times before I can get any words out.
“But…but you said she was an Orso. She’s my mother’s daughter. That makes her my sister, Kate!”
“She is Carlo and Rosa Orso’s child,” Kate says quietly. “But you…you aren’t.”
Chapter 23—The Treaty
“What the fuck are you talking about?” My voice shakes as much as my hands.
Kate glares at me for my language but says nothing about my choice of words. Her glare quickly disappears as she begins to fret with her hands again.
The fact is, I don’t have to ask. I know exactly where this is going. I recall a video I once watched of a deaf child right after receiving cochlear implants and the look of shock and terror on his face as they were first activated, and he experienced sound for the first time in his life.
Everything about my life has been a lie.
“Nataniele, you aren’t an Orso at all. You were born to the Ramsays. You were the other half of the swap.”
I have been overwhelmed with so much new information surrounding the pack of lies I’ve been fed my entire life that this one shouldn’t even shock me. It does, of course. I can’t speak, but I can nearly hear the clicking inside my head as if the tumblers of a lock are falling into place, the combination revealed, and the vault door of my family history is opened, revealing all.
Except it’s not my family.
I’m not an Orso.
“You see,” Kate continues though I can’t really absorb much of what she’s saying, “Carlo demanded they turn over their newborn son to replace his brother Quinton, the family member he lost. In turn, he’d turn over his daughter, Cherice. Your father wasn’t fond of girls, and he already had one, so for him, the choice to give up Cherice was nominal though Rosa didn’t feel that way.”
My mouth is dry, and though I run my tongue over my lips, it doesn’t moisten them.
“Of course, Carlo wasn’t particularly interested in what Rosa had to say about it. They argued, but he made the final decision. She was devastated, but she learned to love you very quickly even though you weren’t her own. Of course, I don’t know how Leanne Ramsay felt about all of it.”
I can’t breathe. It’s all too much. Though I don’t see him, I can hear Pops’ laughter echoing in my head.
I’m a Ramsay.
No. I can’t accept this.
“This isn’t true,” I say softly. “You’re lying.” I know she isn’t. It’s the first time since Cherry entered my life that everything has made sense, but my mouth goes on without my thoughts behind it. “This is just one more lie this family has to throw at me.”
“I’m not, Nataniele. Why would I lie about this? The only reason I’m telling you at all is because it’s obvious you are falling apart without Cherry. I didn’t want you to think you had done anything…unnatural. You aren’t related at all, so you can still be with her.”
My brain hadn’t made that connection yet.
If Cherry is an Orso, and I’m a Ramsay, we can still get married. We can still be together. The whole idea sounds like a horrible daytime drama plot, but it wouldn’t stop us from sharing our lives, and it means we haven’t done anything wrong.
“Why…why didn’t you tell me before now?”
Tears well in Kathrine’s eyes.
“I failed you, Nataniele. I should have
