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And I couldn’t forget the main situation: she carried my sole heir. Sienna was the mother of my future child, and that held more weight than anything else. I couldn’t forgo that fact. If everything else went wrong, this baby would be the exception. I would doeverythingto ensure my child was safe.
“I spoke to my tech guy, Justin. He ran all the information he could on your father, and it looks like we have never had him in our system. He’s never been a known threat to us.”
“Then why did your father kill him?”
I shook my head. “He shouldn’t have. We don’t keep a record of all the people we kill, but if he wasn’t on our list—if he wasn’tdoing something threatening—my father would have never broken into your home and killed him.”
She scoffed. “You’re trying to tell me that your father had nothing to do with it?”
“I’m not saying that. I doubt he’d even remember killing someone that many years ago. But he wouldn’t have broken into a random house and shot an innocent man. And for all intents and purposes, your father wasn’t a threat to us.”
I saw her gears working as she shook her head. “I shot back,” she admitted, biting her lip. “I didn’t know how to use a gun, so I missed. But I tried shooting at the person who killed him.”
I clicked my tongue and shook my head.
My father wouldn’t have run from gunfire, either.
“I can put out feelers. I’ll contact my dad in prison and see if he remembers anything from that night,” I told her. “But I don’t have any information on your father. I don’t remember ever meeting him.”
“He worked for Valentino, and Valentino was a threat to you, right? Even back then.”
I nodded. “He was on our radar but didn’t make a habit of challenging us. He knew he wouldn’t stand a chance. Valentino only became a true threat within the past year. We’d occasionally have coincidental run-ins with his men, but they usually didn’t end in bloodshed.”
“Then why would my father have been caught in the middle of this?” she asked exasperatedly. “None of it makes sense. Valentino said it must have been a personal vendetta, and my dad had a few of those, but not with people as powerful as you and your father. He wasn’t stupid.”
“You trust Valentino?” I asked.
She huffed. “What kind of question is that? He lied about you being the one to kill my father. He clearly has motivation outside of what I’m privy to.”
“You trusted him for this long,” I pushed.
“Because he gave me a purpose. He made me believe I could make a difference in avenging my father. And at the time, there was no reason for him to lie.”
“He’s been working the long game to take us down.”
“I didn’t know that,” she said with a sigh, shaking her head. “Do you really think he’d orchestrate this whole thing?”
Valentino did things for one reason and one reason alone.
“All he cares about is his own endgame. He probably had no idea who killed your father, but he saw the opportunity to manipulate you and took it.”
She buried her face in her hands. “I’ve spent all these years training to avenge my dad, and now I’m learning it was for nothing. I did all of this fornothing.”
“We can still figure out who did it,” I told her. “If it’s that important to you, I can put my best people on the task, and I’ll find the name of the person who did this to your family.”
She looked up at me through her spread fingers. “You’d do that for me?” she asked quietly.
“I only need one thing in return.”
“Anything,” she swore.
I didn’t bother being diplomatic or working around the topic as I stood and moved toward the couch where she sat. I took a seat beside her and leaned back. “I need you to tell me everything about your stepfather that could be of importance. I need you to swear your allegiance to my family and me because as long as you’re working beneath my enemy, I can’t allow you to roam freely through my home.”
She gaped at me. “You think I’d go back there after learning all the ways he’s lied to me?”
“I think you’ve lived with him for a long time, and he has a foothold in your life. You never thought to question him until now, and I don’t know how deep that loyalty runs.”
She didn’t speak as she looked around my office as if trying to find her words.
