Page 43 of Beguiled and Broken

Her voice trembled as she said, “Sit with me. I have more questions.” I stood up, but this time she grabbed my hand and led me to the couch with her, and that was a start. I had missed her touch.

“I’ll tell you anything and everything I’ve found out. Cole helped me find information on her. I have her father’s phone number. I was going to call him, but then you called. Cole found out that Sophia ran away when she was eighteen and moved here ten years ago. No one has been able to find her.”

“Well, fucking surprise!” She said, throwing her hands in the air like a magician. It made me laugh but she rolled her eyes.

“I’m sorry. I don’t mean to laugh, but I had the same response when Cole told me. Sophia has a sister, Elizabeth, who was supposed to marry Damiano. You remember Damiano? He was at our wedding too.”

“I think, maybe. I don’t know.” She shrugged.

“Well, they never got married and we think it’s because Elizabeth’s address comes back to a mental health facility in Vomero. Cole said she’s been there for at least five years. When I was in New York for Nonno’s funeral, Ma told me she felt like something was off about Catarina, but she couldn’t place it. At the cemetary, Damiano pulled me aside and said he thought Caterina looked familiar, but he couldn’t place it either. He probably saw her photos or something from when she was younger.”

“So what do we do now? I think we need to call her dad, right? I mean, shouldn’t he know we think his daughter is our nanny?Wasour nanny.” She emphasized the last part. I was staring at the curls in the carpeted floor when she said it, then looked over at her. “Yeah, Vinny!Was! Don’t look at me like that.”

“No, B! I’m not looking at you like anything.Was. She is not our nanny anymore. I was just wondering where the hell she is. Do you know?”

She shook her head and that worried me. We needed to figure out where Sophia was hiding out, so I said, “Ok, then it’s time to call her father, Raffe.”

Bianca looked at me, nervous, and nodded her head. I picked up my phone and dialed the number.

Chapter 28

Vinny

We spent the next hour talking to her father. He was a hard man to read, leaving us guessing what he was thinking throughout much of the conversation. He let us know they didn’t push the marriage between us because Sophia became unstable after her mother passed. Apparently, her mother’s name was Catarina, and Rossi was her mother’s maiden name. She took her mother’s name in her quest to embed herself in my life. We told Raffe Caterina Rossi was the name she was using in Lynn Falls. When her family didn’t push the marriage, it sent Sophia off the deep end and that’s when she ran away. They pulled all of their resources looking for her, but came up empty every time. She ditched her phone and changed her hair color. Raffe said Sophia always had lightish brown hair butCaterinahad deep black hair. He said Sophia’s hair used to be long, to the middle of her back, butCaterinahad a jaw length, maybe slightly past it, bob cut.

“What happened with Elizabeth and Damiano?” I asked him.

He let out a despairing breath before he began. “Elizabeth and Sophia were close, very close. When the girls lost their mother, Elizabeth became a mother to Sophia. She stepped in and took care of Sophia in every way a mother would. But at some point, a darkness developed in Sophia. She was no longer the same Sophia that we knew when her mother was alive. She became obsessive over everything. The girls knew early on that they would be married off to someone of our choosing. Arranged marriages have always been a common thing here.” I glanced at Bianca when he said it, watching her roll her eyes and shake her head.

Raffael continued, “She became obsessive over you, Vinny. I suppose in the beginning it wasn’t a bad thing because we wanted our girls to accept what their fates were. They didn’t get a choice. She wanted to know you before it was time. Elizabeth walked in on her as she was putting something in a book but she closed it quickly. When Elizabeth demanded to know what Sophia was doing, she opened the book and showed her something like a shrine to you. She had photos upon photos of you and we didn’t know how she got them but she had cut out whoever was in the photo with you and replaced it with herself. Then she started making phone calls to your mother.”

I interrupted him. “I got phone calls early on here in Illinois but they just seemed like a wrong number. Each one became a little more weird.” I looked at Bianca.

“You never told me that.”

I pleaded with her with just a look and mouthedI’m sorry.

“It was probably her, then. You never answered and she would get angry with each call. We pulled her phone history and it was just pages and pages of calls to your house over and over.” Raffe went silent for a moment before saying, “We decided to go through her things and found another shrine of you in the back of her closet. We tore her room apart. Little things here and there in secret. That’s when I knew we had to call off the arrangement between you two.

“I never called your mother and told her, but I called a meeting with my family, including Sophia. I let Elizabeth know ahead of time that we would be calling the marriage off, but we should discuss it together with Sophia. When I told Sophia her marriage to you was off, it was like whatever light was left inside my Sophia was completely gone. It was like a switch was flipped. She was angry. So angry. She yelled and screamed that it wasn’t fair or right, and that you were hers. I tried to address the phone calls and the things we found in her room and she lost her mind, completely off the rails about an invasion of her privacy and how we ruined her life and we couldn’t take you from her. We didn’t know what to do or how to calm her down.

“She ran to her room, slamming the door shut and locked it. I asked one of our security details, Dante to check on her. Dante has been with our family a long time. He’s watched the girls grow up and was there when their mother died. I could trust him to make sure she was ok. She wouldn’t even talk to him. I told him to stay outside her door and follow her wherever she went.

“It wasn’t until dinner that night, when we realized she had run away. Dante broke into her room when she didn’t answer, and she was gone. Her bedroom window was still open. She took a single bag with her, and before she left, she completely tore her room apart. The shrine in the back of her closet with your photos was torn out and a knife was placed in the center of a photo of you and who I think is your wife. That’s when I knew my Sophia was dangerous. We sent Dante to New York to speak with Giuseppe and look for Sophia.”

I said, “My grandfather knew that Sophia was gone? That must’ve been what he meant when he told me no distance would be far enough. I thought he was talking about the you coming after me to make sure I kept the Santorelli end of the marriage agreement.” I brought my hands to face, with my elbows resting on my knees. I was angry and sad, even a little scared for my wife and kids.

“Yes, he knew. Sophia leaving was like losing a child for Elizabeth. She didn’t just lose her sister. She lost someone she helped raise. It sent her into a deep depression when we couldn’t find Sophia. So much so, that we called off her wedding to Damiano and we had her admitted to a mental health facility in hopes that she would get better, but she never has. She lives at Transition Out now. I’ve paid for long term care for her.” There was a minute of silence, none of us truly knew what to say after all that. “I’m sorry, Vinny. When we found out how unstable she was, we tried to stop it, but we never thought she would follow you even after you moved states. It just never occured to us. We were happy to hear from Guiseppe that you had moved. I’m sorry for what my daughter has done to your family, and I’m sorry you didn’t know the extent of it. We thought Giuseppe would have made it more clear.”

“Thank you, Raffe for telling us everything. Maybe my grandfather didn’t want to scare me, so he told me just enough to get me out of New York. Will you send someone here? I don’t know where Sophia is at this point. We kicked her out of our house, but I can’t imagine she’s already left Lynn Falls, or the state of Illinois.”

“Yes, I will send Dante and his son Enzo. We’ll find her.”

“Thank you, Raffe. I’m sorry too. Sorry for the loss of your wife and the loss of your daughters.”

“Thank you, Vinny. Take care of yourself and your family.” The line went dead after that.

I set my phone down on the coffee table and turned to Bianca, holding her head in her hands. I kneeled down in front of her. “Bianca...” I whispered, and reached for her wrists. “Baby, please look at me...please.” I begged her.

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