Chapter 128
“…known your family for years. I’ve wanted to be on better terms, I tried to patch things up with your uncle. He just didn’t wanna know me because Claire’s mother chose me over him, you see. And he always had this grudge about that.
He told me one night out of the blue in a dark alley when he turned up after a poker game I was in that he’d have her back and that if he couldn’t have her, he’d make sure I didn’t either.
He was in love with her, had been since they were kids, but he was best friends and business partners with her older brother, someone even more connected than he was, so she was off limits.
A few years after your mum died, your uncle tried to hook up with Claires mother but she broke up with him a few months later and when she met me she told me her ex was crazy possessive, psycho.
She started to see me on the rebound, probably, but got pregnant so we got married before we really knew each other. I loved her, though. She was amazing. He said Claire should’ve been his. If we hadn’t had Claire he wouldn’t have lost her. I was scared he was gonna hurt Claire. He was a bad motherfucker and I was afraid for my life, too.
I tried to befriend him, started working on one of the crews down in the junction district of town, but when he found out about it, he canned me. All this s**t kept happening to me and it was like he was out to destroy me. I know he was behind a lot of it.
Then he left us alone for a few years. But me and Claire’s mother had a huge blow-up about my gambling and partying and she took my daughter and left. But she came back a few days later and wouldn’t say why.
I think she’d gone back to him but changed her mind. Or maybe he’d kidnapped her and she got away. She wouldn’t tell me. He turned up drunk and stormed into my apartment and told us if she didn’t leave with him, he was taking Claire instead.
Started screaming in my face telling me to pick whether I wanted to keep my wife or my daughter. Claire’s mother, Lita was her name as you probably already know pleaded with him but he pointed a gun at me and finally took Claire, put her in his car. Lita tried to change his mind, go with him, but he said it was too late. Claire got so upset that he let her come back a few hours later but he told me it wasn’t over.
Lita killed herself a few weeks later. Your Uncle showed at the funeral and told me he’d be back for Claire someday. That I took from him so he’d take from me.
Hinted that he was responsible for Lita’s death; I carried that s**t around for years. Always watching my back, always wondering if she really killed herself. I was f****d up.
I know it affected my relationship with my daughter. I just, I dunno, malfunctioned. But I want a relationship with her. I thought maybe you and I could be friends. I could work for you.
See my daughter, be in her life, help you with the business. We’ll be family after you get married. Maybe your uncle will finally let it all go now. Think about it, will ya do that for me?”
I turned it off and climbed off her and got into a pair of boxers. She stayed still. I gave her a minute and then asked, “Do you think your mother was depressed before she died?”
“Yeah,” she said softly.
“Long before or for just a little bit.”
“Long, I think.”
“Do you remember my uncle taking you out of your apartment?” I asked her. She was quiet for a minute. This was key.
“I do.” She said eventually. She climbed up onto her knees and then twisted and planted herself down beside me and re-fastened her bra and then reached for her t-shirt.
I passed her a bottle of water from the nightstand and she took it with trembling hands.
“I knew he was familiar,” she said, pointedly, “I knew when I met him that he was familiar. But I couldn’t place it. Then when I found that picture I gave you I knew he was really familiar beyond the picture but still didn’t know from where. When I heard that recording, when I heard it I saw it playing like a movie in my head. I remember him putting me in his car and I was crying and crying and he tried to settle me down and told me he’d buy me a pony, build me a dollhouse, take me to Disney World. He said he’d give me anything I wanted. I wouldn’t stop crying for my Mom and finally after he drove around for a little while he took me back. Maybe I blocked it out. I don’t know. If it was just before she died maybe I blocked it out.”
I nodded, “Do you remember you and your Mother being kidnapped or being with my Uncle somewhere for a few days?”
“No, I only remember him taking me and driving me around in his car until he took me back,” She got this horror-stricken look on her face for a while.
She was quiet for a few minutes, eyes looking active, like she was combing through details of her memories.
“I don’t know if my Uncle killed your mother. I’m trying to find out. There’s s**t to sort out about my own mother’s death, about your mother, your uncle, lots of shit.”
She sipped her water and looked at me.NôvelDrama.Org copyrighted © content.
“You heard my Uncle’s best friend was your mother’s older brother. His daughter, your cousin, Bianca, married to Nino, Nino who came to Vegas with us.”
She looked shocked.
“So, I grew up with your first cousin. She’s my age.”