Page 26 of Pocketful of Us

The hand forcing me down suddenly vanished, and I didn’t waste a second of precious time. Ripping my face out of the water, I scrambled away from the tub, slipping on puddles, as I frantically made my way to the corner of the bathroom where I proceeded to vomit out the water I had swallowed.

Once I had expelled all of the fluid I had unintentionally inhaled, not to mention any food I had eaten, from my body and collapsed on the floor, I realized Raffaele never tried to stop me or pull me back to the water.

In fact, he didn’t move at all.

He remained completely motionless his knees beside the bathtub, staring down at his hands like he had seen a ghost.

"You d-don’t have to do th-this," I managed to croak out, shivering violently. Teeth chattering, I once again grabbed the picture frame and wielded it like a weapon that could somehow protect me from the man determined to take my life. "Y-you're a g-good m-man."

"That song," he whispered, gaze still locked on his wet hands. "That was Giacobbe's favorite song. His mama sang it to him at bedtime every night." He shook his head as if snapping out of a daze and looked at me. "It is an old song for a young girl. Why would you know it?"

"S-sketch," I strangled out, throat still on fire, body still racking with shudders. "Used to s-sing it to me when I h-had a bad d-dream."

Pain flickered in his eyes and his big shoulders sagged in defeat. "I fear I am losing my mind."

"It's okay. I lost mine a long time ago," I whispered, feeling a strange swell of sympathy for the man who had just tried to take my life. "Sometimes a person's mind comes back to them."

"Has yours?"

I expelled a pained breath. "When I'm with him, sometimes I think it has."

"The boyfriend?"

"Yes." I nodded, feeling weak. "You're not the only person whose life my father destroyed, Raffaele." Drenched to the skin and with my blonde hair matted to my face, I stared at the broken man before me. "He has done terrible things to a lot of people."

"As have I."

"But you're a better man than him."

He shook his head. "I am no better or worse."

"You stopped," I croaked out. "You didn't go through with it."

"Only because I heard you sing that song."

"Whatever your reasons, you still stopped," I urged, still keeping a death grip on the picture frame. "My father could never stop." Pain flickered through me. "Look at what he did to Chris. Mr. Capaldi is supposed to be his best friend, and he still did that to his son."

Confusion filled his blue eyes. "What did he do to his son?"

He didn’t know?"He had him killed."

Now, Raffaele couldn't mask his surprise. "When was this?"

"A year ago last Christmas." Another shiver racked through me and Raffaele tossed me towel. "He tried to have Sketch killed, too."

Confusion laced his eyes. "The boyfriend?"

"Yeah, Sketch is Mr. Capaldi's other son." I replied with a small nod of my head.

"I was not aware that my cousin had another son," he replied quietly, looking lost and sad.

"He doesn’t – well, not biologically at least. Sketch was raised as his son." I expelled a pained breath. "It's a really weird and complicated, not to mention messed up, story."

"Weird and complicated," Raffaele repeated quietly.

"Maybe I can tell you about it sometime?" I dared to offer, watching him like an anxious gazelle stares down a hungry lion. "If you plan on letting me live, that is..."

Raffaele held my gaze for so long that it made me feel unnerved.

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