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“Like hell, I will.”
Fiorella’s eyes narrowed. “Careful, darling. No matter what, I am still your mother.”
“I refused to be Papá’s chattel all these years. I have no intention of starting now. Least of all, yours.”
“True, you resisted your father’s rule, but you still did everything in your power to be noticed. How does it feel, Aria? Knowing that ‘til his death, he didn’t believe you to be his own flesh and blood.”
Aria gasped at the cruelty of her mother. For the first time, she realized she had never truly known her. This wasn’t the kind, caring, and emphatic woman who had protected her from Salvitore’s wrath from the day he had found out about the affair his wife had had. For the past fifteen years, she had lived in hell, breaking her back to prove to him that she was his daughter. She had failed.
The self-satisfied grin on her mother’s face spoke of a deeply seated psychopath reveling in the hurt she was causing her own daughter.
“But he was, wasn’t he?” she said with conviction, finally realizing that everyone had been fooled for years. That her mother had been the puppet master in a game of which only she knew the purpose and the outcome.
“Of course he was. My affair ended more than six months before I fell pregnant.”
“Yet you told him differently.”
“Stick with me, darling, and you will learn survival skills no man can teach you.”
“I’m not staying.”
“It’s your choice, but unless you do as I want, the Frazer brothers have seen their last sunrise. The fire on their land was supposed to end your fascination with them but alas, they were more prepared than I anticipated.”
“You? You were responsible for the fire? My God! Who are you? You could have set the entire area aflame, Splendor Orchard included.” Aria stared at her in shock that quickly turned to anger.
“That was the intention. The quicker your ties with that hellhole are cut, the sooner you will accept your role back in Sicily.” She held up her hand as Aria opened her mouth. “Enough. If you want to see your precious lovers again, it’s in your power to keep them alive. As long as you give in to me. Oppose me, and well...”
“I don’t know you.” Aria stared at the woman who she had always believed to be the most beautiful and pure human being on earth. She didn’t see any of that now. In front of her stood a stranger. A cold, calculated psychopath on a path of destruction.
“What do you want from me?”
“I want you to assassinate the President of China.”
Chapter Seventeen
Two days later, Triple K farm, Bunkie, Louisiana......
