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This woman is an innocent party. She doesn’t want to be here. I can feel it in my gut.
“No! God no. Aidan loves me.” She cradles her small bump protectively. “He lovesus.”
“Then who, Iris? IknowAlex isn’t your baby’s father.”
Her eyes blow wide as she begins to shake her head. “We know Aidan works at GenoCell. It’s just a matter of time before the authorities are involved and you both wind up behind bars.”
She presses her lips together, shaking her head as tears well up in her eyes. Her nostrils flare when those tears crest over her lashes, streaking down along her face, and a feeling of overwhelming sorrow flows through my veins.
I approach her slowly, speaking soothingly, as though to a small child. “And who will take care of your baby then, Iris? Use your head.Think! We can help. No one will hurt you—”
“No!” She cuts me off, holding her hand out for the bag holding the cash that Henry gave to me. “I’m not falling for it. He’s right. Tough times don’t last, but tough people do. I’m stronger than I look.”
Tough times don’t last, but tough people do.
A shiver races up along my spine, hearing those words as though spoken from the mouth of the man I hate more than anything.
The man who tried to ruin my life.
And I’d stake my life on the clear fact that he’s the one who’s trying to do it again.
I narrow my eyes as I look at Iris now, my gut telling meexactlywhat’s happening here.
“It’s Victor Marquez, isn’t it!”
I bark the words, letting them echo around the observatory, and she flinches openly. “No, don’t—”
I approach her slowly, afraid to spook her. “How did he get to you? Debts? Gambling? They’re his usual wheelhouse.”
She shakes her head, swallowing a sob as she tries to back away.
“I canhelpyou, Iris.Please! Is he behind this?”
She closes her eyes, inhaling a breath through her nose before opening them again. Her face is filled with a resolution that wasn’t there before.
“He’s my father.”
I freeze at her words, shock traveling through every inch of my body as she looks at me with pleading eyes.
My mind races to catch up with what she’s just said as she takes a step closer, sincerity painting her eerily familiar features, and suddenly, it all makes sense.
She takes another step, her words low but firm, and I feel the truth of them in my bones. “Reyna…I’m your half-sister.”
CHAPTER33
ALEX
“Absolutely fucking not.There’s no way that’s happening, Rey.”
I fold my arms across my chest, spearing her with a look that brooks no argument, only for her to cock her head to one side with her eyes narrowed to slits.
“I’m doing it, and youwon’tstop me, Alexander DeMarco.”
Rey had come back from the meeting with Iris holding some hugely valuable information.
Firstly, and thankfully, the baby in question isnotmine.
Secondly, her father is behind the extortion and has been forcing her younger half-sister to do his bidding by threatening to harm Iris and Aidan’s three-year-old son. He’d put Aidan in the hospital last night with a concussion and a ruptured spleen when he’d tried to stand up to him.
