The long and long journey to my father's house was considerably quieter than the one I had become used to in past visits.
No ringing phone calls, no work mail to answer, and certainly no distractions of any kind to take my mind off my mission. Just the constant throb of the tires on the road and the gentle low hum of the engine, soothing background sounds as the lights and noise of the city gradually receded from view behind me. It was actually quite late, yet my dad had stubbornly refused to allow me to stay home and had insisted that I drive over to visit him.
And despite everything, I had listened.
I found myself wondering why I had reacted the way that I did. Perhaps it was the unambiguous sharpness that I felt in his voice, which was overlaid by a touch of strange rapidity that I was not accustomed to before. Or perhaps it was that I had managed to go an extremely long time pretending that however much he happened to say was of no concern to me.
But tonight, it was different.
By the time I had finally made it to his enormous mansion, the heavy and foreboding iron gates were already swung wide open, inviting me in. The security lights were activated with their gentle hum and cast bright beams of light that lit up the long and curvy driveway that wound its way up to the ancient, behemoth house before me, a house I had spent so much of my childhood desperately trying to escape.
When I got out of the car, there was a suffocating and paralyzing feeling of déjà vu that overwhelmed me, surrounding my thoughts and emotions with an uneasy familiarity.
The door swung open before I could even grasp it and knock.
He was waiting.
It had been weeks since I'd last seen my father. We were not the kind of family who ate dinner together each evening or who sat around having a habit of talking small over a hot, steaming cup of coffee. Rather, our relationship had been formed and developed as much as it possibly could be through a sense of propriety, a sense of duty to each other, and—since my mother died—a hard, impenetrable wall of silence firmly between us.
But when I stepped inside the doorway and into the room, he didn't meet me in the usual way with his usual cold glare.
Rather, he wore an inscrutable expression.
"Come on in," he growled, already headed for his study.
I trailed after him, my footsteps quiet and echoing on the very smooth, highly polished wooden floors that swallowed the noise whole. The house still had the same familiar scent that it had always possessed, the strange combination of old books and rich leather and the faint lingering of my mother's perfume that still hung in the air, as if she had just walked out for a short while and would be back at any moment now.
He led me into the study; a lovely large room filled with towering bookshelves that stood high with a vast sea of books that seemed to have never been opened at all. There was a desk in the middle of the room that had always seemed to be too big for one man to handle. The fire in the back of the room spoke quietly, creating a peaceful sound that filled the room and throwing long, leaping shadows across the deep, dark wood of the furniture and floor.
Without a word, he reached out to a drawer beside him.
Moved something from where it was.
Turned to me.
And then, with a soft touch, set a little leather-bound book on the desk between us.
I frowned. "What is this?
His face was inscrutable and not to be read. "This is your mother's diary."
The words hit me like a blow.
I gazed at him, then at the book. The covers were worn, the leather dry and cracked from years of use. I recognized this diary. I had seen it once, years ago, when I was a child—before it had vanished along with the rest of her stuff.
"You never told me so? did you hide it from me all these years?
His face turned wooden. "I did not know it existed until recently."
I didn't think so.
But I hadn't contended.
Instead of leaping in, I gradually extended my hand towards the journal, grasping it for a half second before I would open it or not.
The notebook pages gradually filled with my mother's light, delicate writing—each line in itself a soft murmur of the past, a soft reminder of bygone days. Each entry a different aspect of her that I had, sadly, lost along the way.
I began to read.
As I listened to every single word that was being spoken, I felt my whole world coming undone at the seams.
Day 1
I was able to catch a glimpse of them today from afar. They are not aware that I am present, but I could not help but eavesdrop on what they were discussing. They were talking about him. They were talking about my son.
I have to watch out.
I gripped the journal more firmly.
Day 5
They want him dead. He doesn't know. He can't know. If I tell him, he'll fight. He'll get himself killed. I won't let him.
I will not allow them to get my boy from me.
A quick breath escaped my lips, and for a moment, I was surprised.
My father was standing in front of me in the room, watching silently. He was looking carefully. He understood what was contained within this section in particular. He had already read and memorized these very words.
But I hadn't.
Determinedly, I compelled myself to flip to the next page.
Day 11
They're looking at me right now, and I just know it deep inside my bones. Every time I go out my front door, every time I go out the house to do something—I know for absolute certain that they're out there, lurking in the shadows. I really don't know what to do about this creepiness.
Lorenzo, if by some chance or other, you happen to be reading these words… I hope with all my heart that you never get along with the syndicate.
I let out a worried breath, with a cold tightening around my chest.
She had known.
She had known very well that they had plans of killing me.
She had overheard unwittingly the syndicate's highest agendas. She had been an unwitting witness in a world she was never meant to be in or be part of at any level.
And because of that, they had killed her.
A realization came upon me like lead.
I turned another page.
Day 19
I must watch over them. They are bothering me with too many questions.
They think that I know something.
I don't.
All I can do is promise I will stand up for my son.
Regardless of what.
Day 22 is here.
I saw him today. My little son, my boy. I did not tell him the truth that I possessed.
I just embraced him.
I do not know whether I will ever be able to do this again.
I swallowed hard.
The handwriting on the page looked much shakier at this juncture, as if she had written under coercion.
This was her last actual entry.
She had written it with such care, with full knowledge that she would not survive long enough to see the dawn break on a new day.
I had not yet heard anything about the event until then.
When she died, I decided to sever the syndicate's connection, thinking that this was my personal decision. I thought I was free at last and announcing my independence.
But they had let me go.
For she had paid the price already.
I slowly closed the journal, sensing a coldness in my fingers as I did so.
The room was small. The walls bore down upon her, air too thick to inhale.
" I wish you'd told me," I breathed softly, my voice constricted and strained.
My father kept silent for a long time.
"Not that I knew," he acknowledged. "Not until recently."
I looked at your brother with a blaze of anger burning within me. "And you didn't think that I would?"
"I was trying my best to protect and keep you safe."
I laughed; the laughter tinged with sorrow and bitterness. "Save me?" I exclaimed with a wave toward the journal on the table. "She died to save me."
The words lingered in the air and produced a virtually palpable atmosphere.
He did not contradict nor deny the foregoing.
Because we both knew it to be true.
I gasped, running my hand through my hair. My body was weighted, weighed down by the truth, by the silence of the years and all the questions never asked.
I hadn't remembered leaving my dad's. Hadn't remembered driving back to my own.
But then I came to the point that tiredness overwhelmed me just so, and I must have dozed off on the sofa still holding the journal tightly in my grip.
When I woke up, I saw that the sky was light and pale, lit by the gentle dawn light. I knew that my muscles were indeed stiff, and my body was indeed heavy and felt like it was loaded.
That is when I first started feeling my phone vibrate.
I stretched out my hand blindly, rubbing my eyes in front of the monitor.
14 missed calls.
Reina.
I swore, scrubbing my hand over my face as I thrust dial.
She answered it on the first ring and picked up the phone.
"Lorenzo," she snarled, her voice bitter, and yet under that, I could perceive something else. Something I wasn't certain I deserved. Concern.
I took slow breaths. "I'm here."
A break. And then, softening—"Where have you been?"
I allowed my gaze to drop to the journal that rested in the crook of my arms. Its heaviness rested solidly against my skin, much as the unalterable fact that it contained between its pages.
"I will tell you all later when we see each other in person."
Another pause. Next—"Are you all, right?"
I shut my eyes.
Absolutely not.
But I was in that situation where I just did not have any other choice but to be. I will be, I lied. Because I had to get my work done. This time, however, the affair was not all about Sofia as it had previously been.
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