On Best Behavior (C3) (43 page)

“What makes you know
that?”
He leaned forward, his words full of hate.

Her heart raced as the small space seemed to close in on her. She focused on her breathing as she pictured Grant’s loving eyes. “I know that…because of Grant. Because of the amazing person he is. He had to get some of that integrity from you, whether you realize it or not.” She’d promised herself she wouldn’t cry, but her eyes welled up.

“Why are you here?” Enzo asked bitterly.

“I’m here to try to save my fiancé. Your son.” A tear slid down her cheek, and she swiped it away. “I haven’t given up on you like the rest of them.”

He shook his head. “This is bullshit. A waste of my time.”

“So you don’t care at all what happens to Grant.”

He shrugged.

Sophie leaned in, her eyes flaring. “
That
is the bullshit, Mr. Barberi.”

His tired eyes looked away from hers, and she knew she had an opening.
Stop crying
. “You haven’t been able to sleep since you ordered the hit on Grant, have you?”

When he ignored her, she cursed under her breath. Of course he wouldn’t admit that with the authorities watching.

“It’s hard to sleep in prison—you’re always on edge, worried someone will shank you.” She skimmed her tongue across her front teeth. “I remember what it’s like.”

He remained quiet, but she knew she’d piqued his interest, so she pushed ahead. “Did you know I spent time in prison too?”

“I may have heard that.”

“Do you know why?”

His expression reminded her of Logan: a smirk that said
You’ll never know what I know
, a tension in the shoulders that belied the toughness he tried to portray. “I have a feeling you’re fucking going to tell me.”

She nodded. “I was very naïve before I met your family. I’ve wised up a lot since then, so thank you for that.” His deep black eyes were so intense that she found herself trembling. “Logan…the court ordered him into counseling after Grant got arrested. I’d just gotten my psychologist license, and Logan started therapy with me. I knew nothing about the Barberi family at the time.”

Enzo had leaned forward just a bit, and Sophie continued. “Your son Logan was troubled, Mr. Barberi. He had a gambling addiction, and as I learned later, he’d broken many laws, killed countless men. But that’s not how
I
knew Logan.” She had to look away from those piercing eyes. “I knew him as a good man. A man who wanted to be a better father to his son. A man who, as a boy—” she stared directly at Logan’s father “—had tried to protect his little brother from getting hit.”

Observing a flicker of anger in those obsidian eyes, she admitted, “I fell for that man.” She hoped her past with his sons would forge some kind of connection with him. “When Logan told me what he and his brother had endured…” She sniffed. “It hurt me. I wanted to fight for those boys—I wanted to protect them, make it better.” She sighed. “I understand you faced a similar situation once—wanting to protect a child, to save him. You could’ve left Carlo to die after he’d been shot.”

Enzo’s jaw tightened.

“But you didn’t. You got him to a hospital, and they arrested you there.”

“Thanks for the recap,” he sneered.

She ignored his hostility. “My world collapsed when I discovered Logan had stored guns and money in my office. But I had to take responsibility for my mistakes, and I went to prison, just like you.” She had his attention. “I never thought I’d recover from the shame. I never thought I’d live a good life again. But then I met Grant.”

Tears welled in her eyes again. “You and Mrs. Barberi created two amazing sons—do you know that?”

“I do know that.”

His response surprised her.
Then why did you hurt them so much?
she wanted to yell.

Enzo looked down at his hands, and she watched him massage his wrists. This was probably the first time he hadn’t been cuffed or chained when he was out of his cell. “Those boys…they’re the only thing I did right in my life.” When he looked back up at her, his gaze was cold. “And now Logan’s dead.”

“That doesn’t mean
Grant
has to die too!” His eyes widened, and she knew she’d hit a nerve. “You can still have one of your sons alive. You could work on your relationship with him.”

He shook his head. “My son wants nothing to do with me.”

“That’s not true. What do you think that letter he read to you was for?”

“You know about that damn letter?”

Sophie nodded. “Our jerk PO made Grant and me attend couples counseling. I heard all about the letter. And I heard about how much Grant wants your approval—it would mean everything to him.”

Enzo folded his arms across his chest. “Grant never visited me in here once in twenty years.”

“And what have you done for
him?”
she challenged. “Have
you
ever written
him
a letter? Have you ever thanked your wife’s brother for raising him? Did you ever try to take care of Grant when he came to Gurnee, scared out of his mind? Or did you feed him to the wolves when he wouldn’t renounce the one father who’d showed him some kindness?”

Enzo popped out of his chair and drilled his index finger on the table to emphasize every shouted word. “
He. Betrayed. Me!”

Keep breathing
, she told herself. She prayed Jerry and the CO wouldn’t crash the room. She bet Marilyn was holding them off. “You’re fucking pissed off at Grant.”

“Damn right I am!” His chest heaved.

“You’re furious. You believe he took away your freedom.”

“He
did!”
He began to pace.

For some reason she didn’t feel scared. Maybe because she’d witnessed explosions like this from both his sons, and they’d never hurt her—once she’d talked them down, at least. “Mr. Barberi? It’s fine to be angry, but I’m concerned they’ll stop this meeting if you don’t sit down. Would you please sit, sir?”

He blanched and looked at her as if she’d just told him she was an alien love child. But he did sit.

She exhaled. “You look like your anger has come down a notch.”

“What do
you
care?”

She met his eyes. “You’re my future father-in-law. You’re important to Grant, and you’re important to me.”

His fingers drummed on the table, which reminded her of Grant tapping his thigh. He breathed out through his nose as he shook his head. “This always happens.”

“What happens, Mr. Barberi?”

“I fly off the handle then I feel like a fucking idiot.” He continued to tap a random rhythm on the table. “I’m not stupid. I know
I’m
the one who took my freedom away. I’m the one who fucked up that night. Grant had nothing to do with it.”

She resisted the urge to stand up and cheer. They were getting somewhere! “But you did two things right that night at Richie Fanocelli’s.”

He looked at her, his face a question.

“You took Carlo to the hospital, and you didn’t kill Fanocelli when you had the chance.”

“Big mistake.” He shook his head. Silence stretched between them. “Now that I know what it feels like to have a son murdered, I bet Fanocelli
wishes
I’d killed him.”

“But you didn’t. You know what that’s called, Mr. Barberi? That’s called empathy. You knew how awful Fanocelli felt after his son was shot. That’s why I haven’t given up on you.”

He grunted. His fists clenched with the caged energy of a predator.

“Bet you’d love a drink right now, huh?”

His eyes blazed.

“Yes, I know about that too. It doesn’t surprise me you had a drinking problem.”

He laced his arms across his chest, the Logan-like smirk returning. “And why is that?”

“A lot of people develop an addiction when they’re battling PTSD.”

“What the fuck is that?”

“Post-traumatic stress disorder. When you’re re-experiencing a trauma through flashbacks or nightmares, and feeling on edge all the time, sometimes you turn to alcohol to numb out.”

A smug grin tugged at his mouth. “So you’re diagnosing me now? What’s this supposed
trauma
I had? My ice cream scoop dropping off the cone when I was a toddler?”

“I apologize, Mr. Barberi. I’ve never met you before, and it’s not right of me to throw out diagnoses like that. It’s even more inappropriate because I lost my license when I went to prison.” She sighed. “All I know is what Grant told our psychologist—about the time he made you a sandwich when he was seven. You were drunk, and you told Grant a story of when you were his age. Your father had you bring sandwiches to him and his associates in the basement.”

Enzo showed no flash of recognition, and she wondered if he’d been blackout drunk when he’d told Grant the story. She also wondered if he’d buried the memory so deep he wasn’t aware of it. “When you gave your dad the sandwiches, there was a man tied to a chair.”

Enzo froze.

“Mr. Barberi, are you breathing? Mr. Barberi?”

He took a sharp breath.

“I want you to keep breathing as I tell you the rest of the story, okay?”

“Don’t,” he said in a strangled voice.

“Avoidance of anything associated with the trauma is another symptom of PTSD. It’s okay—this happened in the past. This story will be over soon.” She swallowed.
Trust it
. “The man tied to the chair looked really scared, and you wanted to get out of there, but your dad made you stay.”

He stared straight ahead. “Stop,” he choked out.

She ignored his plea.
I have to do this to save Grant
. “Your dad handed you a gun, and he told you to shoot the man.” His glassy eyes looked far away. “You didn’t want to, but your dad threatened to beat you with his belt. So you took the gun, you pointed it at the man…”

Enzo flinched, like he felt the gun go off in his hands. “No.” His voice shook.

“Please breathe, Mr. Barberi.
Breathe
.”

He flinched again, then glowered at her.

“You’re okay—we’re here at eight twenty-three p.m. at Gurnee State Penitentiary, on Friday, March seventh. You’re an adult. Can you look around you and see the stone walls? Hear the hum of the fluorescent lighting?”

“Fuck!” he roared, jumping out of his chair to pace the floor again. “What the fuck are you trying to do to me?” His breathing was so erratic that he had trouble getting the words out. “Stay
out
of my head!”

She sat quietly in her chair as he grabbed his head with both hands. An internal war played out before her. The battle had begun sixty years ago, and he was still fighting today. He gripped the chair with trembling hands and emitted a guttural cry. She looked at the one-way mirror and mouthed,
It’s okay
.

“Why did you tell me that fucking story?” He glared at her.

She reminded herself to breathe. “You asked me what trauma you experienced as a child. Being forced to kill a man…that’s the only trauma I know about, but I’m sure there were other incidents of abuse.”

“Abuse?” he scoffed as he pressed his hands on the table and leaned forward. “My dad was teaching me the business.”

Her mouth dropped open. “Of course it was abuse. It’s
not
okay to force your child to shoot another human being!”

“No.” He shook his head. “He
had
to be hard on me. I-I-I was weak—I was stupid. It took a long time to get anything through my thick skull. He had to drum it into me.”

Her heart ached. “Those are excuses perpetrated by an abuser, Mr. Barberi…nothing more. Your father switched the blame from him to you, but that’s not fair because it wasn’t your fault—you were only a child. What your father did was wrong.
He
hurt you.”

“No.” His voice held less conviction this time. “He had to toughen me up.”

“No!” She waited until he looked at her to continue. “It
wasn’t
your fault! Of course you took the gun—you’d have been beaten if you hadn’t. Any child would’ve done the same thing. He was your father, and you wanted to please him. Being forced to kill a man at the tender age of seven…it would’ve destroyed
any
child. The guilt that you’ve endured your whole life since that day? Your father hurt you deeply. It wasn’t your fault.”

He stared at her for what felt like five minutes. With the deep crease on his forehead and the confusion swirling in the thick oil of his eyes, she assumed he was replaying that childhood moment, perhaps integrating this new perspective…that Enzo Barberi wasn’t such a horrible person, he wasn’t unredeemable.