Jessica Sorensen: Sins & Secrets

A woman about the same height as me with the same color of hair and eyes, similar lips and facial features, dressed in leather pants, boots, and a jacket. The woman in leather?

She looks like some sort of badass ninja assassin from the movies, a gun on each side of her belt, and boots that hug her legs and go to her thighs. Her dark hair is pulled into a tight ponytail She stares darkly at me as she strolls into the room, glancing around at the back area and then the bed, appearing completely unbothered by the gun in my hand. “You weren’t supposed to be seen, Layton. Tell me that through all that shit none of Frankie’s men saw you... They need to still think your dead otherwise we’re both fucked.”

“I’m not sure… I’m hoping not.” He closes the door and flips the lock and slides the chain over. Then he turns and gives me another apologetic look while the woman continues to stare at me with curiosity.

“I thought she’d be prettier,” she says with a bored expression.

“Who the hell are you?” I elevate the gun at her. “Start talking or I’ll shoot.”

She rolls her eyes like I’m pathetic. “We both know you’re not going to shoot me, that you have a history for freezing up.”

Okay I already don’t like her. She’s struck a nerve. A deep nerve. “Layton, who the fuck is this?”

He sighs tiredly, massaging the back of his neck tensely as he paces the space between the bed and the door, his gun still in his hand. “If I could just—”

“I don’t want to hear it.” I point my gun at him. “No more running around and distracting me with sex. Spill it. Now. Who is she?”

His eyelids lower and the look he gives me makes my skin tingling all over. “The sex wasn’t about that and you know it.” Then suddenly he grows uneasy again. “God, you’re going to hate me after this.” Another sigh as he stops between the ninja girl and myself. “Lola, this is Solana.” He pauses, biting at his bottom lip. “Your half-sister.”

I don’t even flinch. “Nice try, but I don’t have a half-sister,” I state, putting one hand on the bottom of the gun handle to steady it. “I’m the only child and you know that.”

Layton starts to move toward me, taking tentative steps, his gun in his hand, but his hand lowered to his side. “That letter of your mother’s that you found wasn’t about you. It was about her.”

I’m trying to keep composed, just like I was taught to do, but it’s becoming harder when my life is getting more and more flipped upside down. “How do you know about the letter… No one knows about it… no one alive anyway.”

“A couple of people do.” Layton stops just short of me, so my gun is pointed at his chest, proving that he’s not afraid of me, proving that he knows me too well. “Well, not so much the letter but what the letter contains.”

“A couple of people?” I ask. “Like my father… Is that why…” Is that why my mother’s dead?

“Your father does know about it—about Solana.” He offers me a sad smile. “Frankie knows too and a couple of others. It’s part of the debt your father was in with Frankie.” He gaze flickers to Solana who’s standing stoically, looking directly at me with her arms folded. “He helped keep her hidden from what he considered the wrong people and in return, your father owed him a lot of money. When he didn’t pay, then… well, you know the rest.”

“But why would he need to keep her hidden?” I ask, lost. “It doesn’t make any sense. Who are these wrong people?”

“He doesn’t want my real father to find out.” Solana intervenes as she moves with measured steps toward me, her heeled boots shuffling against the carpet. “Everson Milantes. I’m sure you recognize the name.”

It’s starting to make sense, the few things I didn’t quite understand in the letter, things that didn’t seem to pertain to me. “It wasn’t me she was talking about,” I say it more to myself than anyone else. I glance at Solana and there’s no denying that were related. Very, very closely related. “But I still don’t get it… why would he want to keep you hidden from everyone, including me. And why can’t Everson know he has a daughter?”

She lets out a laugh, but it sounds hollow and wrong, empty like her eyes. “Because our mother cheated on Larenze Anelli and not just with anyone, but with another Anelli.”

“But letter said it was Everson Milantes.” I look back and forth between Layton and her, wondering why they’re telling me knows, wondering a lot of things. “Not Anelli.”

“That’s because he changed his name,” Solana explains, sitting down on the dresser near by, and letting her legs hang over the edge. “See your father once had a brother who didn’t want to be part of this shitty drug world. But Anelli’s have no choice so instead of accepting his fate and either taking over or getting killed, Everson ran, kind of like you,” she muses.

“But it said you might not be Everson’s,” I tell her. “That my mother—our mother wasn’t sure.”

“Oh I am,” she assures me with disdain. “ Your father made sure of that right before he sent me away.”

“But I was born right after my parents were married,” I say, still unable to wrap my head around the fact that I’ve had a sister all my life and never knew about her. “And they barely knew each other before that… I mean, how far apart are we in age?”

“Only a year.” Her eyes turn icy cold. “But don’t worry, all your precious stories are true, except for when they met. They still got married on the same day, still had you right after. They just forgot to include me in the stories, but that’s probably because for most of them I wasn’t in them.” She pauses as if debating whether or not to say something. “And it doesn’t matter. Even if there was some chance I wasn’t Everson’s daughter, what’s done is done. I can’t erase the past. I am what I am and there’s no changing it.”

There’s a sadness in her voice she’s trying to cover up and it makes me wonder…

“Where were you?” I ask. “All these years—where did you live?”

Something flashes in her eyes like a bright fire doused with fuel, but when she speaks her voice is impassive. “I lived with your Aunt Glady until I was old enough to go to a… A special school.”

“Wait a minute?” I ask, noting that Layton shuddered at the mention of the school. “My Aunt Glady knew about you.”

“ Our Aunt Glady does,” she says expressionlessly.

All these years, not only did my parents lie to me, but my Aunt Glady did too. I thought I could trust her, but I guess I was wrong. My whole family is a bunch of fucking liars.

“So why the fuck are you suddenly showing up now.” I swing the gun back and forth between the two of them. “And leaving me notes I’m guessing.” My attention lands on Layton, because now that he’s here and alive, it’s starting to make sense. The reason the handwriting looked so familiar, the woman in leather being at The Dusky Inn, the note on my hand after the Tenner incident.

“It was the only way I could think of to make contact with you without giving myself away.” His gaze welded to mine, barely blinking, like he’s afraid I’m going to bolt. “I was trying to get you to leave Glensdale, trying to get you to leave subtly before…” He scratches the back of his neck and the looks to Solana for help.

“Before what?” My voice carries warning as I cock the gun.

Solana rolls her eyes at Layton then looks at me. “Before I have to kill you.” Her expression is dead serious, stone cold, her hands near her weapons. The look in her eyes tells me she’s planning on doing exactly what she just said. “You broke the rules though Layton,” she says, hoping off the dresser. “We had a deal. No contact with her ever again.”