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“That’s the day I got the text message asking me to change the location of where to meet. “Why change the location?” Kenzo asks.
“Because Ada wouldn’t have known where the red willow tree was.” God, I am such an idiot. How could I not see through all of that? Ada had been manipulating me from the very start. I’d bet anything that Ada blocked my number on Vanya’s cell phone so that she’d think I abandoned her. And I wouldn’t be any the wiser because Ada had all our messages as proof of who she was. Or who she was pretending to be.
“Why though?” Vitali asks the question I’m thinking. “She couldn’t have known who you were at the time. You never shared your identity.”
“Because it was never about him,” Anton whispers. “None of this is about Adrian.”
“Then who is it about?” Kenzo questions.
“Vanya,” I say. “This is all about Vanya.”
“She was never spying on me for the Castellanoses,” I ground out bitterly. “She wanted me to believe that. I think she was doing someone’s dirty work. Spiridakos said that E-Ris had been making a play for his shipments. Theo Castellanos was millions in debt to suppliers because he kept losing all of them to an unknown thief. That's information that takes years to gather. I'd bet she was really looking to take the Castellanoses down and whomever she was reporting to was the one funding it.”
“So, you're saying over the last six years that whoever's running the show now has been using Ada’s information?”
I nod. Anton’s phone chimes and he walks over to the other side of the island to grab it.
“Here's what I don't understand though.” I pinch the bridge of his nose in frustration. “If they were just going to call for a hit on the Castellanos family, why bother digging their empire into the ground? Why wait six years?”
Anton snaps his fingers. “Didn’t Spiridakos say that Theo was giving up Vanya because he didn’t need her for a marriage alliance anymore?”
“Yeah.” I’m unsure of where he is going with the information.
“What if he found another heir? Someone related to him by blood but who wasn’t his daughter.”
I look at him in confusion. “I’m not sure what you are saying right now.”
“That little girl and her father?” he starts. “Their names are Jonathon and Mary Tessler and this…” He swipes on his phone and holds it out for us to see. “Is his late wife Monica.”
Holy fucking shit. I’m looking at a photo of Ada.
“Are you telling me his traitorous-ass wife had a whole other family?” Kenzo asks shocked. I’d almost believe it except for one small problem.
“Ada couldn’t have kids,” I tell them. “She had to have her ovaries removed when she was sixteen due to cysts.”
“What does that mean? Who is that then? Her fucking doppelganger?”
I stare at the photo and shake my head. Fuck, I should have seen this coming. Ada didn’t have a doppelganger.
She has a twin.
Thirty-Six
Jesus. My head hurts and one side of my face feels swollen. There is a whirring somewhere above me but I’m too tired to open my eyes.
If one of them can even open at all.
What happened?
I remember that I was digging up Cora’s grave… she’s definitely in there, and then…
“Look who’s finally awake.” That voice. I know that voice. “Come on, open those big eyes of yours, Vanya. I know you’re awake. Don’t pretend.”
The jig is up. Slowly, because my eyelids feel like bricks, I open my eyes. Is this what it feels like to be hungover? There is a jumping monkey with a tambourine inside of my head. Possibly a bull raging through a China shop.
Ugh, Jonah’s beady eyes. I should have known. The way he had looked at me when I first saw him should have been a clue.
Also, beady eyes. Need I say more?
