He lied.
He hid this.
I voice the first logical thought that crosses my mind. “I need to take Oscar and Slonne.”
Giulio is desperate to defuse the fire, rushing after me as I sprint away from him and plead for the keys to their rooms. “Valencia, I know how it looks. But I never…it wasn’t premeditated! If that’s what you’re thinking, it’s wrong. I did not plan to kill him. My father ruined everything for me. When my mother died and it was revealed that my father cheated on her during her last months, it was too fucking much for me. The night I went to my father’s for Thanksgiving—”
“Please, stop,” I beg him in the middle of tears. “I need the keys. Where are the keys?”
His own tears slide down his cheeks. I cannot mask the way I feel. It’s everything at once. The shock. The anger. The betrayal. The pain. This has destroyed everything. The intruder knew information. He gave us a countdown. He would have been a piece in the puzzle to bring Addilyn back.
The pain of Giulio’s past flashes across his face. I know he’s suffering too but his actions here tonight scare me to the point I don’t know who he is anymore.
“Valencia, please just hear me out.”
“I don’t want to hear it.”
“That night things went south quickly. My father began insulting me and put a gun to my head when Marcus joined his abuse. My father told me I had another sibling. He didn’t get through the first name or any other details. I didn’t want to hear it. All I kept thinking was he didn’t just cheat on my mother once. He began screaming and told me I was the one who was the problem. He was happy with his new wife and Marcus. My mother was the first issue. I was the other half of the issue. He openly admitted to me that he had been cheating on my mother since the day of her diagnosis.”
“Giulio, I—”
“Lencia, it tore at my whole heart. She thought he loved her and went to the grave with this thought. Meanwhile, Marcus was in some other woman’s stomach! Valencia, please…please, give me some time to finish the story and explain everything.”
I slow down in front of Oscar’s door. All the information Giulio feeds me is too much and the reality gets worse when every single word takes my already shattered heart and continues smashing it into tiny fragile pieces that cannot be put back together.
“I am scared, Giulio.”
“I know you’re scared. I am too.”
“No. This is different.” I turn to him with tears blurring my vision. “You scare me.”
Giulio drops to his knees in defeat.
Clasping my hands, he pushes them to his chest and I witness the sobs that escape him. It hurts my chest, but I cannot accept it. The back of my throat stings. If we were different people I could hold him and tell him I forgive him for this, but I can’t.
“Valencia, I love you. Please, I love you.” His fragile words break upon continuing. “I will allow you to do anything. To hate me. To call the police on me. To want to divorce me after this. I will not stop you. The only thing I’m begging you to do is listen to my story. Then, you do whatever you want to do and I will take it. I promise you this.”
I make a split decision choice.
Okay.
We step away from Oscar’s room and into the bedroom. I sit on the edge of the bed while he paces back and forth with his head buried in his hands. There’s a string of curse words through his controlled sobs and after a few moments, Giulio finally comes to a halt in front of me.
“I don’t think we locked the French doors before we went into the shower…I think he came through these doors, heard us, and went beyond.”
That only makes it worse. While we were driving ourselves to ecstasy, he was lurking around the house. Oh…my god!
Eyes red from crying, Giulio unloads the gun and drops it on the floor between us. Moonlight creeps across his skin, illuminating everything I want to forget. When Giulio lifts his eyes to me, they’re no longer warm and bright like they were when I first met him.
They’re in agony.
Like mine.
“Marcus was twelve when we saw our father for the last time. My stepmother hated me because I was half of the woman she despised. They brainwashed Marcus to hate me from a young age and he did. My stepmother wasn’t there on the Thanksgiving night; she was working the late shift at the hospital. It was just Marcus, my father, and me.” Giulio purses his lips, screwing up his face at the thought. “The conversation escalated and as I said before, Marcus began taunting me and I was going to give him a piece of my mind when I felt…my father pulled a gun on me. He blamed me. He claimed I would never get anywhere in life. That I would never be good enough, that I was weak.”
There’s so much strangled emotion in Giulio’s face. I realize this must be the first time he’s recounting this story—that’s part of why it’s so hard.
“My father continued to say things about my mother that to this day still haunt me. He didn’t care about the time Marcus keyed my car, or when he threw my mother’s jewelry away, or set my mattress on fire. He never cared once my stepmother came along. Sitting at that Thanksgiving table, I knew I needed to leave and return to Seattle. I turned around and was staring down the barrel. I was certain he was going to kill me. That’s the type of man my father was. He never backed down. I allowed it for a split moment. I thought that at least I would be with my mother, that it would set me free, but by
