Chapter 51

FIFTY-ONE

Tuesday August 24, 2010

I’m back where I started: On my knees, begging the Salentino family for mercy.

Dr. Forster’s secretary told me he’d left town and couldn’t be reached. The professional conduct situation he mentioned was an understatement. Six women accused him of crimes far worse than getting them pregnant.

Lyle’s brother, Clive, got arrested for making snuff movies. His trial was fast-tracked due to the overwhelming evidence, and he ended up with a life sentence. I managed to visit him in jail to ask where Dalton had taken my daughter, but he kept raging about being framed.

You know what? I believe him.

If Lyle can orchestrate such devastating revenge over the course of six months, then Dalton can set up the owner of a BDSM nightclub for a crime as heinous as filming the murder and rape of women. Maybe Dalton and Lyle weren’t really expelled from the FBI solely for protecting their targets’ victims.

The Salentino twins have confined me to a room while they conduct their searches. By the time I reached their mansion, I’d forgotten the name of the hospital Dr. Forster had transferred Amy to, and its location. I’m furious with myself.

Giorgi’s sisters have read this diary. It’s the only thing keeping me alive. Apparently, they knew Lyle was working for the FBI. He was their inside man, feeding them information to keep the authorities at bay. He told me we were “in hiding” from the Salentinos when, in fact, he’d continued working for them for years after I’d escaped, making everyone think I’d been abducted by a gang in New Jersey.

My disappearance from the family aggravated an already tense truce, and that led to the deaths of Giorgi, his father—head of the family, Don Salentino himself—and one of the Montesano cousins. Relations between the families are stable now, but the Salentino sisters say the only thing keeping me alive is that my girls will need their mother when they return.

The investigator they hired took a week to locate Amy. An entire army of men moved in on her location and extracted her from an asylum. She’s now staying in the infirmary at the Montesano mansion, under the care of the doctor they have on retainer.

While she was comatose, the twins debated whether to kill me and raise Amy as a Salentino. They were nice enough to stand outside my room so I could hear them discussing whether I lived or died.

I would call them cruel bitches, but they’re my only means of survival. Besides, I’m in no position to judge.

When Amy woke up, hallucinating Lyle, their plans to steal her from me turned to shit. Not wanting to be saddled with a mentally deranged girl, they arranged a house for her on the same stretch of road as their mansion and told me to give her a good life. Or they’d burn me in their incinerator.

They’re still looking for Dolly, but their detectives say the trail has gone cold. Dalton Grey doesn’t exist. Not in the FBI. Not in any criminal database, and the pictures I have of him don’t match anyone they can find.

He’s vanished into thin air with Dolly. The idea that my daughter might be lost to me forever is unbearable. She’s probably dead. Or trafficked. Or indoctrinated by that evil bitch, Charlotte.

Every time I look at Amy’s face, all I see is my failure. That, and her identical twin, who I handed to the wolves, and the beautiful baby whose life was cut short. I can’t help but wonder if we’d still be a happy family if I had been satisfied with my two daughters.

Sometimes, I wish I’d never met Lyle at all. If Giorgi had killed me, then my daughters would still be together, living with their aunts and grandmother. Maybe they’d be spoiled brats, but they’d be alive. And sane.

They’ve already chosen a psychiatrist to help Amy. Dr. Saint is the kind of professional who doesn’t keep records of her underworld patients and won’t run to the police at the first sign of criminal activity.

I’m supposed to spill all my secrets to her, but it’s obvious she’ll report back to my Salentino overlords. They all think I’m a fuck-up. Maybe I am, but I’ll do my best to help Amy and create a welcoming home when the detectives find Dolly.

Amy has a place at the Tourgis Academy, where she’ll be safely out of the way while I repay the Salentino family for their generosity. Mother Salentino said that a two-timing whore like me is only good for entertaining men.

As soon as Amy is in school, my job is to ‘seduce the president of the New Alderney Cemetery Board and gather enough evidence to make him stop harassing the Salentino’s fine crematorium for a bunch of violations he’s fabricated out of thin air.’

Once he’s blackmailed, I must ‘sink my slutty claws into the assistant mayor and get hold of a list of classified documents.’

So, that’s my life. I escaped the Salentino family as an abused wife and returned as an indebted courtesan. That’s my karma. One day, Amy’s memories will return, and I’ll have to explain why I allowed her to be abused and her sister to disappear.

I have no idea how I’ll reply. Sometimes, I wish Giorgi had carried out his threats against my life, because existing like this is a living hell.