Sofia shook her head. “We became Daniel and Sofia Carter before they were born. They are such good girls, your sisters. We are so blessed. They always wanted to know about our families, but of course, Danny and I had to lie about it. Pretend we didn’t know anything. That’s part of being in the program. So do you know what these wonderful girls did? These girls who loved their father so much? They surprised him by putting his DNA in a database, so he could learn all about his family and heritage. They used one of our home COVID tests to get his DNA and they sent it in to that site. Clever, our girls. Your sisters. When they gave Danny the gift, we both went pale. It was such a breach. Danny ran to the computer and deleted the profile. But, well, too late, of course.”
“I’m sorry,” Wilde said. “I didn’t mean to cause you trouble. If I had any idea my father was in witness protection—”
“Danny isn’t the reason we’re in witness protection,” Sofia said. “I am.”
Wilde felt something icy slide down his back.
“Before I get into that,” Sofia said, “do you mind if I ask you a question?”
Wilde nodded for her to go ahead.
Sofia Carter was a small woman, beautiful, with high cheekbones and steely eyes. She lifted her chin. “I read an old article on you. It said you sometimes have old memories from before…” Her voice petered out.
“Not really,” Wilde said. His mouth felt dry. “I sometimes have dreams or like flashes.”
“You see things like snapshots.”
“Yes.”
“Like a red banister, the article said. A dark room. A portrait of a man with a mustache.”
Wilde couldn’t move, but he was starting to feel it.
Sofia lifted her hand and rested it on the white banister heading up to the second level. “This used to be dark red,” she said. “Blood red, really. The interior of this house? It used to be all dark woods. The new owners painted everything white.” She pointed to the left where a blue-and-yellow tapestry now hung. “A portrait of a man with a mustache used to hang here.”
Wilde felt dizzy. He closed his eyes for a moment, tried to regain his bearings. The woman’s screams began in his head, and then those familiar images—banister, walls, portrait—came back to him, rapid-fire, quick flashes, like strobe lights. He opened his eyes.
It had been here. In this very foyer. He was back.
“The screams,” Wilde managed to say. “I heard screams.”
Their eyes met.
“They were mine,” she said.
“So you’re…”
She didn’t bother nodding. “I’m your mother, Wilde.”
So there it was. After all these years, Wilde’s mother stood directly in front of him. He looked at her and felt his heart explode in his chest.
“This spot I’m standing on,” Sofia said, her voice numb, “this exact spot, is where I stood the last time I saw you. I opened this little door”—she pointed now at the storage door under the stairwell—“and I made my little boy promise not to make a sound until I came back. Then I closed the door and never saw you again.”
Wilde felt heady and faint.
“I can’t tell you names. I can’t tell you places or details. Like with your sisters. That’s part of the deal we made to set up this meet. And we don’t have much time. I’m scared because when you hear this story, you may end up hating me. I’ll understand that. But it’s time you knew the truth.”
He waited, afraid to move, afraid to disturb the air. This all felt like one of those dreams, the good dreams, and midway through, you start to realize it’s a dream and you’re trying to do all you can to not yet wake up.
“When I was a teenager, I attracted the attention of a horrible, vile man. A truly deranged and damaged psychopath from a deranged and damaged crime family. The vile man became obsessed with me, and when a man like that decides that you are his, you either acquiesce or you die. There are no other options.”
Her gaze wandered toward the stairs. Wilde had still not moved a muscle.
“You may wonder why my father and my mother didn’t help me. My father was dead, my mother, well, she encouraged it. I won’t go into my family or childhood. Suffice to say I knew no one who could help. I was a captive. The vile man put me through hell. I tried to escape once or twice. That made it worse. I was trapped in this big estate with three generations of the vile man’s family—his grandparents, his father, his two brothers. Crime bosses of the crime bosses.”