Page 82 of Daddies of the Underworld

But they didn’t bring him straight to me. He’d been checked over by a doctor, then taken through security checks twice. Even when they made it through the front door, Matteo’s voice interrupted in that calm, terrifying tone. Dante came in once to tell me Marco was conscious.

I stayed with Sofia and did my best to prepare her for the sight of her uncle. I had no idea what he’d look like now, but based on the picture I’d seen, it would be a shock.

Matteo opened Sofia’s bedroom door and peeked inside. “He’s ready to see you.”

Was I ready to see him? My heart had been in my throat so long I didn’t know how it would ever go back where it belonged. I should have been relieved since getting the call he was alive. And I was. God I was thrilled. And angry. And hurt. I had so many emotions tearing through me I’d cried twice and been living on coffee and pretzels because I couldn’t stomach anything else.

For one stupid second, every survival instinct I’d honed went quiet. I had my brother back.

Then I remembered Sofia sleeping in a safe house because a man who had used my brother had been watching her. I needed answers, and Marco would give them to me.

He had to.

I stood, and Matteo moved aside. His hand brushed my lower back when I walked past, his way of telling me he was right there with me every step of the way.

I wasn’t walking into anything alone anymore. Never again, unless it was what I wanted.

Marco had been put in a small bedroom near the back of the house. Another room with no windows, a small bed in the corner, and a guard at the door. I stopped with my hand on the knob. Anger was easier out here. Out here, Marco was still the brother who had lied, stolen, and run, leaving me to pay the price. Leaving me to think he was dead. Out here, I could still hate him. I didn’t think I could do that once I looked into his eyes.

My heart thrummed, causing my eyes to burn. I had no choice. I had to see him. I turned the knob and went in.

Marco sat propped against the pillows. He was thinner than in the picture, his wrists bony and bruised. Gray threaded through his hair, and the scab on his lower lip split when he said my name. “Nina.” A trickle of blood leaked onto his chin, and he didn’t bother wiping it away.

Damn it. Tears blurred my vision, and I crossed the room in a heartbeat, hugging him tight. He made a small, wounded sound and startled in my grip, pulling away.

I loosened my grip, but then he gripped the back of my shirt, fingers bunching in the fabric.

“I’m sorry. Fuck, Nina. I’m so damned sorry. I screwed up.” His sobs shook his shoulders, and I lowered myself to the edge of the bed, holding him and crying into his shoulder.

God he was thin.

“They told me you were dead.” His sobs shook his whole body, the force of them rattling the bed frame.

We cried together for so long I could barely see through my swollen eyes when I released him. “When did you find out I was alive?”

“Three years ago.” He used the blanket over his lap to wipe his eyes. “That’s when it all went to shit, and I ran.”

“You didn’t try to find me. Did you know I was here?” I didn’t mention the city in case they hadn’t told him where they were moving him to when they put him on a plane.

He rubbed a shaking hand over his mouth, smearing the blood from his busted lip. “They were watching me. Every city I went to, I ran into his men. I stopped looking for you. Stopped asking questions about you. I knew if I found you, I’d lead them straight to you and Sofia.”

I started at the sound of my daughter’s name. I had expected it. We knew that Viktor knew about Sofia, had known about her for months. “When did you learn about Sofia? Did you know I was pregnant when I left?”

“No. I found out later. Viktor showed me a picture of the two of you. It was a mistake. He’d had his men tell me you were dead because I’d stopped being compliant. So he showed me a picture, trying to manipulate me into doing something else for him.” He didn’t defend himself.

That made it worse. My anger needed an outlet, and he looked so frail and pitiful I couldn’t keep hammering him down. We were family. I might have disagreed with his choices, but I’d made mistakes too.

“After he showed me your picture, I started digging. I found everything, even the alliance contracts and Viktor’s scheme to use the missing money as his bait to set the hook to get the other members to bail on Matteo.”

“Why didn’t you bring the information to Matteo? Why keep it to yourself all these years?” My anger returned, mixed between disgust at his cowardice and the realization that I’d been no better.

“Because I realized I had helped start a war. I watched, and I listened. Matteo was handling it. I was afraid if I showed up again, the odds would tip away from him. And they’d kill me.” He tried to smile, but the macabre sight of his sunken cheeks and the hollowness in his eyes ruined it.

I fought down a shudder. My brother resembled one of the ghouls in the scary stories Dad used to tell us. And I didn’t know for sure if all this was another set up. “What does Viktor want with Sofia?”

Marco stilled. He’d been picking at the blanket, but except for the shaking in his hands, the rest of him went eerily stiff. “Viktor wanted you because you mattered to them. At first, that was enough. You were leverage. Then you disappeared, and he lost a piece of his game.” Marco’s eyes met mine. “He thinks Sofia gives him the power back.”

“Over my dead body.” My pulse roared in my ears. Over my dead fucking body. Never. That man would never see her in person, much less be close enough to turn her into a chess piece on his awful game.