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She laughs again, then leans hard against me. “I don’t know what’s real anymore. My mom—I don’t know if you know anything about her, but she was born in Islamabad. She met my dad when she was here for college, and he swept her off her feet. He was fresh out of the church, and her parents were devout Catholics.”
My brows rise. “Didn’t realize Pakistan had Christians.”
She scoffs. “They don’t teach you social studies in the UK?” She doesn’t give me the chance to answer her and tell her that for me, being able to attend school regularly was rare. “I don’t really know how her parents felt about her marriage. I never got the chance to meet them, and I don’t think they came to her funeral.”
My stomach twists at the pain in her voice. “I’m sorry.”
She shrugs, her shoulder jostling me. “I guess I didn’t realize what I was missing.”
I nose through her hair, breathing in her soft lavender scent. “If it helps, never met mine either. My mum was a prostitute who got thrown out when she was fifteen, and my dad was some drug dealer who met her in a pub. He sent money sometimes, for my upkeep, but I didn’t have anyone but her. When he asked me to move to the States and help him with business, he implied I had family here. I didn’t realize he meant…”
“The Walshes?”
I hide my face from her because I realize she doesn’t know our stories. Not entirely. “The Romanos.”
Alice immediately stiffens. “What—”
“My father worked for yours. A drug dealer and—” I stop, not wanting to tell her what else he was trafficking. “He told me he had an opportunity for me if I moved here. So I did. Then he betrayed Guido, and this was his punishment.” I press my stump against her, and she reaches her hand up reflexively and closes around the end of it.
“Did you…were you…loyal to him?”
“Guido?” I ask with a scoff. “Love, I was in it for money, so I wasn’t dumpster diving outside Domino’s for dinner. My loyalty was born the day Kane dragged me out of a drug house, nearly bled to death, and nursed me back to health. I sold my soul to that man.”
She’s quiet for a long time, and I hold my breath, wondering if I’ve betrayed her. “Six degrees of separation,” she finally murmurs.
I don’t know what that means, but something about it sounds right, so I just nod and kiss her temple. “I’m sorry I didn’t tell you.”
She turns. “There’s a lot you all haven’t told me, but I can be patient. I don’t think any of it matters, anyway. I mean, we all got here some way or another.”
Most of us through Romano, I think, but I don’t say that to her. The only two who haven’t come from under that bastard’s heel are Kane and Phoenix. Stroking her hair, I tilt her head up and kiss her softly. “I know it was hard losing who you thought was your father.”
She shakes her head. “That’s not it. It’s realizing my entire childhood and all the ways he pretended to love me before my mom died were a lie. It’s him knowing the whole damn time that I wasn’t his and still letting me think I meant something to him. It’s knowing that even if I had been his daughter by blood, he still wouldn’t have seen me as a person. I was just this thing to further his…” She waves her hand. “Whatever. Agenda. Fortune. Control?”
It’s all of those things, so I snag her hand and press a kiss to her knuckles. “I understand.” Closing my eyes, I lean closer until my forehead touches her temple. “Why don’t we carve him up and auction pieces of him on the dark web.”
She shudders, but she also laughs, and I know that her soul is going as black as ours. Maybe she’s horrified, but I think a tiny piece of her wants to see it. “It’s funny that, in spite of our pasts, I can look at Kane—I can look at all of you—and know that it won’t matter where this kid comes from. That they’ll never be just…just some piece of meat that Kane can use to make himself more powerful. Not I was.”
She’s not wrong, but at the same time, I wonder if that’s not what we’re doing right now. We’ve stolen her from Romano because she was valuable. We’ve taken her virginity and her independence, we’ve got a child in her now, and soon, she’ll be a Walsh. We’re stealing everything Romano wanted to sell for ourselves.
How is that different?
I look down at her, and she looks more relaxed now. “Alice…”
“You all gave me a choice. And while no one wants to give me a straight answer whenever I ask you what would happen if I said no to all of it, I just packed up and left…”
My heart twists in my chest because while I’d probably learn to live without her, the wound would never close. “You know what we’d say, don’t you?”
She nods. “You’d let me go. Ari might track me down and try to convince me to stay, but…” She sighs and shrugs. “Ultimately, Iamfree. The problem is I don’t think I want to be. Maybe it’s because I’m fucked-up from having grown up in some little fishbowl, but I feel safer this way.”
I stroke her chin, then lift it and take her lips with mine. “You’re going to be a vicious queen, little darling.”
Her eyes get a little harder at that, glittering obsidian in the faint light of the night sky, and she nods. “I know. And anyone who ever looked at me wrong is going to pay for it.”
At those words, I kiss her harder, and I only relax when I finally feel her submit.
Chapter17
KANE
