Get The Girl [h.s] AU

43

"I don't mean to interrupt," I interject, getting impatient and annoyed at the fact that I was still in this room. Vincent looks at me. "But I still don't understand what this—" I motion to the room. "Any of this has to do with me or why I'm here."

Vincent chuckles and nods his head. "I do apologize if I'm rambling. I've spent so much time behind bars I've forgotten what it felt like to just...talk about my life." He sighs and relaxes a bit. "But if you want to understand, I'm afraid I'm going to have to keep talking." I bite the inside of my cheek and nod. I did want answers after all. "Frida and I always had a special kind of bond, a bond her and Fiore never got to experience. I was in love with her from day one and I felt guilty about that. How could I do that to my best friend? When Viola came into my life, we were good friends for a time until we tried to make things work. I was hurt that my best friend was marrying the woman I loved and I guess I took that out on Viola. As a result, she became pregnant."

"And then what happened?" I push.

Vincent seems to ponder on what he said before speaking once again. "And then it all went to shit." He sighs. "I turned to alcohol and drugs, I was depressed and I felt as though my life was falling apart. Fiore got me into breaking into houses for the hell of it. We got into so much shit up until Viola started showing. I wish I could say that it stayed that way but that wouldn't be the truth. Fiore hated the fact that I was being pulled away from all the chaos, we were in our early twenties. I should've been out partying, not at home playing house. I was driving him back home from a party one night, he seemed riled up and I didn't understand why, maybe it was the substance he had abused."

"I don't quite remember what had happened but I do remember the fight we got into. A week later, Viola went into early labor. I missed the birth and by the time I got there, she had already lost so much blood." Vincent looks ahead, reminiscing. "There was hope for a minute or two before she..."

I shift in my seat as Vincent struggled to find the words. "I only got to hold the baby once before everything went to shit. The next thing I knew, I was thrown in prison for something I didn't do. Murder they said. Hearing my sentencing, my father suffered a heart attack and died, leaving everything to me. But by then, nothing else mattered. I had just lost my freedom, the mother of my child, my best friend and my baby. My family." He digs inside the box and takes out a Manila folder that he passes to me.

"What is this?" I ask, looking at him hesitantly.

"The answer to all your questions." I look back down to the folder in my hands, I felt my heart pounding in my chest and cold sweats. I hesitate for what felt like forever before I eventually open the folder to reveal a birth certificate.

Valentina Victoria Di'Marco born to Vincent Di'Marco & Viola Di'Marco.

"I can still remember the day you were born," Vincent says but I keep my eyes focused on the paper before me. "You were so small and you fit in my hands. You hardly cried." I felt sick to my stomach, I didn't know much of my background back home as it was and now to be here and have this strange man tell me that what I lived before was a complete lie.

I blink away tears that threatened to spill and set the paper down to look at him to see he had something in his hands, a necklace. That same necklace my mother took from me as a child. "Where did you get this?" I say as I take it from him.

"That was the necklace I left with you the day you were born. It was your first birthday present." He says sadly. "All this—" Vincent motions to the pictures. "Every one of these pictures were sent to me by Frida throughout the years."