Page 4 of Sins of the Father
Mia stayed perfectly still. Her heart pounded so violently it hurt. She was sure they’d hear it, sure they’d find her. She didn’t dare breathe. Her lungs screamed for air.
“All clear,” someone finally said.
“Did we miss her?”
“Maybe she is at the aunt’s,” another muttered, though the tone said he didn’t believe it.
A pause.
Then the same cold voice said, “We’re done here.”
Pop!Another shot. Mia flinched again, biting down hard. She heard something heavy hit the floor—Donata’s body. She didn’t move again.
Silence settled like a fog. No more footsteps. No more voices.
Mia stayed hidden, trembling, the taste of blood in her mouth. She waited until long after the front door slammed and the engine of the car faded down the street. Her limbs refused to work. Everything inside her screamed to crawl out, to check on Donata and find her father. But her body wouldn’t listen. When she finally inched out, her legs buckled beneath her.
Donata was facedown. Blood soaked the floor. Her hand was still outstretched, as if reaching for her. Mia collapsed beside her, hands trembling as she shook Donata’s shoulder.
“Please,” she whispered. “Please wake up.”
But there was no response. No breath. Just the fading warmth beneath her fingers, the stillness settling in. She kept whispering her name, over and over, until the words broke apart in her throat.
And then—nothing. She didn’t remember passing out. Only the sound of her own sobs swallowing her whole, and the cold. When Mia woke, her head was heavy, and the room around her was eerily quiet. For a moment, she thought it had all been a dream. Then her father entered, followed by a doctor. The doctor checked her pulse, his voice soft.
“How are you feeling?”
Mia tried to answer, but nothing came out. Her throat burned. Her body wouldn’t move. Her father stood silently at the foot of the hospital bed, expression blank, eyes hard. Not grief. Not worry. Just distance.
The doctor approached with a syringe.
“There’s no need to be afraid,” he said soothingly. “I won’t stick you with this needle. The contents will go into your IV—see, into this bag here.”
Mia swallowed, her eyes tracking his every movement. She watched intently as he tapped the syringe once, then pushed the liquid into the IV line. A wave of warmth spread through herveins, then heaviness. Her limbs slackened. Panic rose in her chest, but her body was no longer hers. She tried to hold her father’s gaze, to ask the questions swirling inside her. Why was he doing this? Why wouldn’t he speak to her? Was Donata gone forever? But her eyelids were already fluttering shut, the drug pulling her under like dark water.
The next few days were fractured snapshots—white walls, whispered voices, the low hum of wheels on tile. Faces passed in and out of view. None familiar. She was moved, cleaned up, and packed. Her clothes were replaced with plain, pressed uniforms she didn’t recognize. When she finally resurfaced enough to push through the drug-induced fog, she was strapped into a seat on a private jet. The stewardess gave her a tight-lipped smile as she handed Mia a bottle of water and a rosary.
“Where am I going?” Mia asked hoarsely.
Her father, seated across from her, didn’t look up from the file in his hands. “St. Mary’s,” he said. “It’s a convent boarding school. You’ll be safe there.”
“Why?” she croaked.
He didn’t meet her eyes. “It’s for the best,” he said flatly. “I’ll visit when I can.”
The words felt final. She tried for several minutes to recall anything that had happened over the past few days, but nothing came to mind. She blew out a defeated breath and glanced at her father, still browsing through his files, and the fragment of his voice—low, edged in warning, and a raised voice filled her mind. The other—unfamiliar, angrier—had cut through the air like a blade.
“She’s only what… six or seven years old and already a target, Ettore. They know she exists. You should’ve moved her years ago.”
“I did what I had to. She was innocent.”
“Innocent won’t matter if they come for her.”
Mia didn’t understand the full truth yet, but she knew one thing for certain. She wasn’t being sent away for school. She was being hidden. And Donata was dead. Grief followed Mia like a shadow. She didn’t speak or ask her father any more questions. On the plane, a stewardess offered tea. Mia watched the liquid tremble in its cup, her reflection warping in the surface. Somewhere below, the mountains rose like broken teeth. She imagined opening the emergency door and stepping into that white silence. The stewardess took the untouched tea away. No one came back.
At St. Mary’s, she never told the nuns the truth about what really happened. Mia found she could not bring herself to talk to them either. They chalked her silence up to nerves, to a difficult childhood, to “adjusting.” But it was grief—grief with sharp, jagged teeth. Donata had been more than a housekeeper. She’d raised Mia. She was the only softness in a house full of secrets.
And now she was gone. Because of her.
