Alessandro closes the folder. "For your sake, I hope there is. But until we know for certain, she's a threat."
I turn away, my mind racing. When I face him, I say, “Bring her back here. Ask her.”
His eyes narrow. “She won’t admit to betraying us.”
“That never stopped us from interrogating someone. Bring. Her. Back.”
He nods, picking up his phone and telling Tony to bring Eve back to his office.
Moments later she steps in, Mirabella still in her arms. Fuck, the kid doesn’t need to see this.
“Why don’t I ask someone to take her?—”
“No.” Eva’s eyes go wild and she clings to her daughter. “She stays with me.”
“Sit,” Alessandro orders her.
Eva sinks into the chair, her eyes darting between us.
Alessandro goes straight to the point. “Explain why you’re on a list my father made of people who were betraying the family by working with the Russians?”
She glances at me.
"He believed you betrayed the family. Was he right?" I hate how badly I want this to be wrong and how terrified I am that it’s right.
The color drains from Eva's face. For a moment, she looks like she might deny it, might spin another lie. Then her shoulders slump.
"He questioned me," she says quietly. "Four years ago. He'd been watching me for weeks. He was convinced I was selling secrets to the Bratva."
"Were you?" Alessandro demands.
"No!" Her eyes flash with defiance.
My fists clench at my sides. "Why didn't you tell me?"
"I was trying to protect you! I know what happened to Luca. I begged him to believe me, but he wouldn’t even though he had no proof. Finally, he gave me a choice—leave and never come back, or die."
The words knock my world off balance. My father, the man I respected, had threatened the woman I loved without even telling me.
"He didn't even care when I told him I'd just found out I was pregnant.” Eva bats away the tears that fall as if she hates that she’s crying.
“What?” My world was already upended twice today. It seems impossible that it's again tumbling over. “Who? Who the fuck were you?—”
Her head jerks back as if shocked by the question. “You! It was you, and he didn’t care.”
I stagger back, something I never do. Nothing has ever rocked my world like hearing she was pregnant by me and my father knew and still threatened to kill her.
"Your father ordered me to disappear even after I told him I was carrying his grandchild."
"Are you saying…" I can barely form the words. "Mirabella is my daughter?"
Eva nods, her gaze never leaving mine. "Yes. There's never been anyone else, Adriano. Never."
My world stops. Crashes. Rebuilds itself in an instant.
I have a child. A daughter.
“This could be total bullshit,” Alessandro warns me.
