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“And my biological father? Who is he?”
“His name was Doran O`Leary.”
“O`Leary?”
He nods.
“His father Richie was a big gambler and owed me a debt he couldn’t pay. So I took his son.”
I stop dead in my tracks, my legs refusing to walk any further.
“You took him as a payment?”
He lets out an evil laugh.
“You have yet to learn how powerful we are darling girl. But you soon will. Even Richie was a powerful man once but to much of it can make you greedy. Everything you touch becomes more expensive. The cars, the clothes, the women. It can make a man feel like he is on top of the world. Untouchable. The more untouchable you believe you are, the bigger the gamble you take. And Richie took a lot of gambles, until there was nothing left.”
“But you took his son. How could you do that?”
His face snaps to mine.
“What I did was a fucking kindness to that boy.”
“A kindness?” I snort almost choking on the words.
“An animal locked in a cage would have been treated better than that boy was. He was starved, beaten half to death, and whored out to the highest bidder to pay off some of his father’s debts. His father didn’t even look twice when I took him.”
“How long was he kept here?”
“Almost a year.”
So that’s how they met. He lived here under the same roof as my mother for a year. It wasn’t rape like he said. They must have fallen in love.
“I had one rule to be obeyed whilst he worked off his father’s debt. One he knew he would die for if he broke.”
“What was the rule?”
“To never touch, speak, or look near Viola. He broke it.”
“Is that why she ran away because you found out about them?”
His face turns an ugly shade of red.
“Your mother knew the consequences of her actions. And so did Doran. There is no room for disloyalty and betrayal in this life. He was my prisoner and Viola was my daughter. She was a chosen for the Garo family. Not only did she betray me but she broke her vows before she even said them.”
My heart thuds loudly in my chest, my voice cracking as I speak, “You killed him for it? For falling in love?”
“Yes,” he says coldly. “I made your mother watch her lover get beaten to a bloody pulp before I put a bullet in between his eyes. I made her witness what happens to people when they break their word to me.”
Nausea swims in the pit of my stomach and I begin to shake at the realisation of what this all truly means. He killed my father. He put a bullet in his head and made her watch. She must have been shattered completely. That’s why she ran. Ian didn’t know she was pregnant with me. He would have made her get an abortion or killed her himself. I always thought that maybe she left because she didn’t want to be a mom, but now I know that couldn’t be further from the truth. She must have loved me to have sacrificed herself by running away. She gave birth to me then give me to her childhood best friend who she trusted would keep me safe. Except it was all for nothing because now I’m trapped in this life just like she was with no way out. A tear slips from the corner of my eye but I quickly wipe it away before he sees.
“I knew in my heart that you were my granddaughter from the first day I laid my eyes on you at the wedding. It was as if I had seen a ghost. You looked so much like your mother and the necklace confirmed it.”
“But it’s just a necklace. How can you be so adamant that I’m your granddaughter?” I ask him straight out.
“It’s not just any necklace my dear. It is the necklace given to the chosen roses. Forbidden to be with any other. It belonged to your mother when she was chosen for Eric Garo. That and along with a DNA sample I had taken when you were passed out confirmed it,” he says pulling out a folded piece of paper from a pocket in his jacket and handing it to me. A cold chill creeps down my spine when I read the numbers highlighted in bold.
“99.9% match? I need time to process all this,” I rasp reading the jargon on the bottom of the page in an attempt to distract myself from the impending panic attack I can feel coming on. I walk over to Viola and Maria’s headstone reading the words on the granite.
