Inizio (COMPLETED)

44. Revulsion

"Your father knew Rosalie's mother, Gloria. That's actually how Marco met Rosalie: through your father. Anyways, on our frequent business events, your father met Gloria while she was waitressing."

"Was this before he met my mother," I asked. His silence was deafening as he slowly shook his head.

My thoughts ran laps around my head as I feared what came next.

He shook his head and stared at the paper I'd handed him. I placed my hand over it, drawing his attention back to me.

"I can't say. I really—," He began.

"He dated her while he was with my mother," I asked, my voice slightly cracking.

"Dated is a... nice way to put it," he mumbled. I rose a brow, my heart shattering for my mother. The image of my kind, loving father was starting to blur.

"Tell me," I told him. "It..." tears fought to be released but I fought harder. "I think it will help piece something in these," I said, pointing to the pages handed out to everyone in the room.

"He slept with her... quite often." Mr. Fiorentino looked at me before continuing. "He made it a habit of having her around— only during those trips and business meetings. At one point, he was introduced to Rosalie, who I believe was one at the time. When he invited Gloria to an event one night as his plus one, I expressed how much of a bad idea I thought it was. He got upset with me, claiming I was a hypocrite because of my own affair." Mr. Fiorentino looked at his wife who's head was between her hands. He reached out for her hand, but she pulled away. He sighed and continued.

"I let him go. They got closer and he would go out with Rosalie and Gloria. We wrapped up our deals that year and came back to the states. He had us waiting at the airport for 2 hours because he had to say goodbye to her. She ended up moving back to Spain because, as I found out later, she used to get financial support from him." I leaned back in my chair, completely exasperated by the revelation.

"He cut ties with her for that year when he found out your mother was pregnant with you. The date represents the last time he'd celebrated Rosalie's birthday—that day he had us waiting at the airport." To show he was done, Mr. Fiorentino placed the paper on the table, leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms across his chest, shaking his head in dismay.

"So...? What? Someone wanted to commemorate that date so they put it as a password for the room, and the briefcase," I said, sadness and hurt slowly turning into rage.

"Your father was in charge of all security codes. The less people that knew the codes, the better. So... that was all his doing," Mr. Fiorentino replied.

I noticed that my leg had been shaking violently underneath the table. I needed to leave the room before I exploded. But we had things to address first. I settled for the basic 'count from 10' tactic.

It wasn't working.

My heart was beating so hard, I felt it in my back. I could feel my face heat up at the sympathetic stares coming from the silent people in the room.

Zhara: act now, dwell later.

I cleared my throat and sat up in my chair.

"If everyone would direct their attention to the pages before them, we could begin." Some of the guards looked at the Fiorentino's to see what their next move would be. No one really moved, sort of taken aback by my choice of reaction.

"I found these pages on the guard at the office of the ruined estate. As I said earlier, upon finding it, only the front page had writing. The rest of the pages were blank. I put it away and after heading to the base with Marco, I opened my bag and found all the pages filled with drawings and lists. This occurrence was a common method of messaging in the early 1600's. It's how spies got their messages across: using invisible ink that could only be seen once the pages were wet. I assume this guard was planning on delivering this to someone— that someone being Rosalie."