Page 90 of Sinful Lies

“When Angelo turned nine, Carlos and I planned a surprise for him. A weekend in the Hamptons—just the three of us.”

She swallowed, unable to meet my gaze.

“We wanted him to have our full attention for three days—no interruptions, no work. We locked up our phones, stashed them in the safe. It was supposed to be perfect. Mid-August, warm, sunny. We rented a private house with its own beach.” She sighed, her voice softening. “It was beautiful, Jade. A weekend that was supposed to make everything right.”

“That sounds like a wonderful birthday surprise.”

She nodded, lips pressed tightly together. “It was. We ate, laughed, painted together. But on the last day, Angelo wanted to stay on the beach. He was so content, building sandcastles, lost in his little world.” She stopped herself, and the smile faded. “Everything happened so fast, Jade…”

I leaned in, instinctively holding my breath.

A few seconds ticked by, Monica sitting there like she was carrying the weight of the world in her hands. Her lips were pressed together so tightly, I thought they might disappear.

For a split second, my cold little heart started to ache for her.

But I snapped myself out of it, quick.

“Carlos and I decided to go for a swim. Just a few minutes. Nothing too long,” she said, her breath unsteady. “We thought it would be fine. It wasn’t like we were leaving him alone. He was just playing, building his castles by the water. We were right there—just a few hundred feet away. But when we came back…”

She paused, swallowing hard, as if trying to force the words out.

I could see the pain flash across her face.

“When we came back…” Her voice dropped to a whisper, barely audible. “He was gone.”

“Gone?”

Monica nodded, eyes unfocused. “We searchedeverywhere, Jade. We screamed his name. We ran up and down the beach, asking everyone if they'd seen him. But no one had. And then, after what felt like forever, we called the police. The moment we reported it, I knew—it wasn’t just some prank. No. It was too quiet, too calculated. He’d been taken.”

Nothing on my bingo card of Angelo Lazzio’s secrets could have prepared me for this.

Stolen money? Yeah, maybe.

Hooked up with a teacher? Sure.

Butkidnapped?

“Who took him, Monica?”

Her eyes flickered to mine. “That’s the thing, Jade. We never found out. They took him, and we spent days in hell—no ransom, no contact. Just gone. For fourteen days. Then, one day, we got a call. A man on the other end told us Angelo was safe… but he was different. Changed.”

She wiped her eyes quickly, trying to hide the tears that had fallen.

“When we finally got him back, he was never the same. He was scared, withdrawn, haunted by things I could never understand. And that’s when Carlos started changing too. The people who took him, Jade—they didn’t just take Angelo. They took something else from all of us. Our happiness.”

Angelo Lazzio—kidnapped.

The man who controlledeverything, who crushed anyone who dared to cross him, had once been a helpless child, taken without a trace.

How the hell did that fit into the puzzle of who he was now?

I couldn’t speak.

My brain was racing, but my mouth? Useless. Stuck in neutral, unable to process the bomb she’d just dropped.

Monica sniffed. “You know… he never—he never talked about what happened during those fourteen days. Not once. Not to me, not to Carlos, not even to the therapists we forced him to see. All he ever said was that he was fine. That he didn’t want to talk about it.”

He’d never told anyone?

---