I close my eyes, trying not to cry. I never wanted this life for Mirabella. Or for myself.
"Are the bad men still chasing us?" Mirabella’s soft voice asks as she clutches her stuffed unicorn.
"No, baby. We're safe now." I hope it’s not a lie.
“I’m hungry.”
“Okay. I’ve got some snacks.” I quickly bought them at the train station.
I sit her on the seat beside me and pull a juice box and peanut butter crackers from my bag. I lower the table on the seat back in front of her and set them there.
She takes a sip and a bite but then stops.
“Are you okay?” I brush her hair from her face.
She shrugs. "I dreamed about Daddy. He was fighting the bad men. He kept them away."
My throat tightens. "Did he?"
She nods solemnly. "Daddy is strong. He said nobody could hurt us when he's there." Her little brow furrows. "Why didn't we stay with Daddy?"
The question guts me. How do I explain that the truth I'm hiding would make her father hate me more than death itself?
"It's complicated, sweetheart."
"But Daddy loves us. He read me stories and made the monster voices. He said we were his girls forever."
I fight back tears. "I know, baby."
"Can we go back to Daddy when the bad men are gone?"
Each innocent question is another wound. In her world, problems have solutions. Bad men go away. Families stay together. If only that were true.
She curls up again, resting her head in my lap. As much as it would kill me, I should have left her with Adriano. She’d been in her fairy room, warm and well-fed. Safe.
I close my eyes and see my father's face the night the Bratva came.
"Run, Eva!" he'd screamed as Maksim Vasiliev's men dragged him from our home.
I was nineteen and knew nothing about running from the mob. When Maksim cornered me weeks later, his offer was simple. Infiltrate the Dante family or my father would die. Not much of a choice.
My father had been a low level associate with the Dante family, so I wasn’t sure they’d even accept me. But they did.
I never meant to fall in love with Adriano. Never meant to create this beautiful, innocent life.
If I'd stayed with Adriano now, would Alessandro have discovered my past?
That I once fed information to Maksim Vasiliev?
That I was the reason the Bratva gained a foothold in Dante business all those years ago?
Don Lorenzo suspected me.
Now Ivan wants me back under his thumb or dead. He knows my connection to Adriano now, and I have no doubt he’ll try to use it, which puts Mirabella in even more danger.
Adriano won’t understand nor forgive my betrayal.
The man who executes traitors without mercy would see me as nothing more than another enemy to eliminate.
