“What are you talking about?” Memphis yanks the shirt over her head and closes the gap between us to stare down at the open journal. She stumbles back a step, knocking her shoulder into mine.
I reach out to steady her as I read the caption beneath it.
Selena Mazzini, before she was found murdered in the Mazzini home.
“Why... why does that look like me?” Memphis whips her head sideways to stare at me, and all the color is gone from her face. She looks like she’s seen a ghost. “Who ... who is that?”
My teeth grit together, and I reach down to pick up the book.
Selena Mazzini’s body was found by her husband, Sonny Mazzini, on the evening of August12th...
I look back at Memphis.“Benny’s got a lot of fucking explaining to do.”
38
Memphis
The photo is of a woman who looks like me, but now that I stare at it closer, I see the differences. My eyes are a little bigger and her nose is a bit wider.
But still. It’s my face.
I follow Cannon through the brownstone as he yells for Benny. Everyone sticks their heads out of their rooms, and he demands to know who saw the old man last. Tempo directs us to the library, and we find Benny reading in front of the empty fireplace.
As soon as we cross the threshold, Benny looks up from the book on his lap. “You hollering for me?”
“What the fuck do you know that you’re not telling us?” Cannon demands, holding out the journal and the picture of Selena Mazzini.
Benny glances at the picture and then at me—sans wig and contacts—and there’s not a single shred of surprise on his face. None.
“I told your woman I’d only seen eyes like hers once before.”
“On a dead woman named Regina,” I add and then jerk my chin toward Cannon. “Is that her real name? Regina Rossetti?”
Benny reaches up and scratches the rough whiskers forming a layer of scruff on his unshaven face. “Yeah. And I’m pretty fucking sure you’re the missing Rossetti daughter that Giancarlo and GTR could never find.”
My mouth drops open and a coating of ice forms over every inch of my skin.
“No. No. That’s not possible. My name is Memphis Lockwood. My father was Leander Lockwood, the reporter and news anchor. I’m not a Rossetti.”
“You sure about that, kid? Because Alessandra Rossetti disappeared the night her mother was murdered, and then when Gianni, her daddy, went after Dom for killing his wife, he never said what happened to the little girl. Her uncle and cousins never could find her.”
Cannon’s grip on my hip tightens, like he’s trying to brace me for what’s to come, but I’m sure I already know. Still, I ask the question anyway.
“What happened to Gianni Rossetti when he went after Dom for killing his wife?” I swallow the saliva pooling in my mouth, and my entire body shakes as I wait for an answer.
It doesn’t come from Benny, though.
From beside me, Cannon says, “Dom killed him. He didn’t want to, but Gianni wouldn’t listen to reason. He didn’t believe that Dom hadn’t killed Regina.”
“Oh my God.” The food I ate earlier rises up with bile from my stomach, and I shake even harder.
Cannon must realize my knees are going to give way, and he maneuvers me into the chair opposite Benny’s. “Sit. Jesus Christ, you’re fucking white. Benny, get her some whiskey.”
“I’ll get us all some fucking whiskey,” he says.
I hear the chair squeak as he rises, but I don’t look his way because Cannon is kneeling in front of me.
“We don’t know anything yet. It’s just a fucking story right now, Memphis,” he says.