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“Tell me!”
“My uncle is the POTUS, Tanner. Steve Harding, the President of the United States.”
“Holy fuck.”
“Now you know. Unless I can find her on my own, I will never see my little girl again. He holds all the cards. I have no way of fighting him.”
“What about Savannah’s father? Why didn’t he stop them?”
“He wasn’t part of her life. I don’t even think he would remember me.”
“What are you saying?” His eyes flickered as he looked at her, his hard gaze penetrating the darkness of the room.
“I never told him I was pregnant.”
His expression turned thunderous. Sera cringed in the face of his rising anger. She knew how important family was to him.
“How could you not have told him? He had a right to know he was a father.”
“It was a one-night stand. It happened during my first tour. I had just witnessed the first cruelty of war, and I was vulnerable. It was my birthday and the perfect excuse to get drunk as a skunk, so I could forget the sight of children being killed. Collateral damage, they were called.” She swallowed hard but avoided his eyes. “Besides, I n-never... I never saw him again after that.”
“And that makes it right? Not telling him?”
“I’m tired.” She pulled out of his arms and turned her back on him. “I’m going back to sleep. I’m sorry I woke you.”
“We’re not done talking about this, Sera.” He was quiet for a long moment. When he eventually spoke, his voice was dangerously soft. “Your first tour. That means the one in 2007 to Afghanistan.”
Sera’s breath stuttered in her throat, but she refused to turn around.
“Itwasyou. That’s why you were familiar when we met at Quantico. You were the young woman I spent the night with after that raid on the military hospital.” He yanked her upright and forced her to look at him.
“I’m right, aren’t I? I am Savannah’s father. I have a daughter. You fucking knew who I was when we met in Quantico, and you didn’t tell me. Jesus! How could you not tell me?”
“Tanner… I was young, stupid, and scared. We each went our own way afterward. I had no way of—”
“Bullshit! You knew who I was. I told you my name and where I lived. I might have gotten drunk over the course of that night, but I wasn’t out of it. I remember everything, Sera. You fucking always knew who I was.”
“Yes, I did, but let’s not discount the fact that you never knew who I was. If you did, why didn’t you ever try to find me? I’ll tell you why, Tanner Wilde! Because I meant shit to you. I was nothing other than a piece of ass you fucked to forget the casualties of war!”
“Mary Sitwell. That’s the name you gave me, which I found out later didn’t exist. So, if that’s what you want to tell yourself to absolve what you did, go right ahead. You didn’t know me then, Sera, and you just proved that you still know nothing about the man I am. The man I’ve always been.”
He got up and walked toward the door.
“Know this. I don’t give a shit that your uncle is the POTUS. Come what may, I will find my daughter, even if I have to choke it out of him.”
Chapter Sixteen
Mayan King Ranch, Santa Cruz, Belize…
Chiara was listless. For the first time in weeks, she was given time off from training. After her private school lessons were done, she felt lost. Class, exercise, and gruesomely tough training had become so routine, she didn’t know what to do with herself.
Rose Martens would have curled up next to the swimming pool with her nose buried in a young adult romance, but that innocent, vulnerable young girl was no more. Within a couple of months, Bulldog had transformed her into a cold, heartless, would-be killer.
But right now, she couldn’t even distract herself by thinking about the dreaded, powerful mafia don or his shady intentions.
“I’ll never get away from here,” she mumbled as she considered attempting another escape, like she had tried so many times in the first few weeks. She never got far, and all she had left for her troubles were permanent, cutting whip marks all over her back. She gave up after that. Escape would have to wait for a more fortuitous occasion. For now, she had to accept her fate and become as ruthless and unfeeling as Salvitore Sanchigo. It was the only way to survive.
Chiara kicked open the patio door and walked toward the pool.
