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“Believe me or don’t, but it's true.”
“You hate me so much that you’d pawn me off?”
“You brought this on yourself with your little robbery attempt. I plan to use it to my advantage.”
“I refuse to marry Vincenzo.”
Uncle Cono shrugged. “Then he kills you, or I do.”
He moved back behind his desk, removing what looked like a recording device from the drawer.
“What’s that?”
“Shut up and listen.”
He pressed play, and I immediately recognized the man’s voice.
“She’s not here right now,” Mark said.
“What I’m about to say stays between us,” Cono insisted.
“I hear you.”
“Nyla is not a Sartori. She was adopted by my brother.”
“Why are you telling me this?”
“Because I need you to keep her until I figure out how to get her to sign over the money to me. The bitch refused to listen to me, and I’m not raising a child who’s not mine.” Cono grunted.
“She wants to move in with me. I wasn’t expecting to have a full-on relationship,” Mark groaned.
“Think of it as a favor, and we both come out clean.”
“I want my money upfront.”
“You’ll get half now and the rest after she gives me her share.”
“She’s not stupid.”
“She's like her stupid mother. My brother was a fool to adopt her and sign over a fortune. The money should have remained in the family.”
“All right. I think I hear her coming.” The recording ended as Mark hung up.
I stood and backed up to the wall, knocking the picture of my dad when he was younger. I’d skipped the typical teen years, living in fear of the unknown. Discovering that the man I thought was my biological father had adopted me pushed me to want to know the truth—no matter how hard it would be to hear.
“Who’s my father?”
“You don’t need to know. Yet.” Cono stated.
I straightened the picture almost absently before turning my gaze on my uncle. “You're disgusting.”
A grim smile spread across Cono's lips. “Now, now, Nyla. It’s simply business.”
Tossing and turning in bed, I pushed the covers off me and sat up, restless from the nightmares replaying in my head. Cono Sartori wasn’t my uncle. My entire life was a lie.
“How can this be true?” I mumbled to myself.
I glanced at the bedside clock—2 AM. I rummaged through the closet, grabbed a robe, and left the bedroom in search of a phone. I tiptoed down the hall to the living room to find it empty. “He must have a phone around here.”
