by Nicole Fox
And maybe the smallest hint of wonder?
Maybe she sees what I see. A little bit of her own soul reflected back in the face of another.
“What’s your name?” I ask. My harsh tone has softened all on its own.
She hesitates before whispering, “Evie.”
“Is that short for something?”
“Evelyn.” Her nose wrinkles, just a little.
The corner of my mouth twitches up. “You don’t like your full name?”
“I like Evie better.”
“How old are you?”
“Six and a half,” she replies. She can’t help but say it pridefully. Like it’s a badge of honor.
But I’m too busy doing math in my head to notice much of that. Counting back and back and back, with a growing sense of cold dread in my stomach.
Six and a half.
Fuck.
It all adds up.
“How did you get here?” I demand. The harshness is back. Evie flinches at the sound of it so close to her face.
“A man brought me,” she whimpers. “He told me to go and knock on the door. I had a note… but that man took it.”
Her eyes slide to Adriano accusingly.
He unfolds an unassuming piece of white paper and hands it to me. I don’t recognize the handwriting.
There are only a few words written across the lined sheet. Three sentences. Each one hits me like a razor-sharp knife to the chest.
She’s your daughter.
Her mother is dead.
She’s your responsibility now.
The dread deepens. A weaker man would’ve collapsed to his knees. As it is, I barely manage to stay upright. To keep breathing and refocus after this brutal shock to my world.
I read the words again. Daughter. Mother. Dead.
I wrench my gaze up to glower at Adriano from where I’m kneeling on the carpet.
“This is it?”
The child backs away from the fury on my face. Her lower lip trembles.
I try and dial back my anger so as not to frighten her, but I find it surprisingly difficult.
Restraint has never been necessary in my world.
Adriano just shrugs. He knows as much as I do at this point. But I’m certain he’s read the note and done the same math I just did.
He understands what it means, just like I do.
But I need more information.
“Who was the man that brought you here?” I ask Evie.
She flinches again and drops her chin to the ground once more. She’s frightened. Too frightened to speak.
I growl and try to repeat my question in a softer voice. “Who brought you?”
“I don’t know,” she answers. Her voice is as tiny and frail as she is.
“What did he look like?”
“I can’t remember.”
“Evie,” I say, trying to swat away the impatience. Her name sounds clunky and wrong on my tongue. “Try and remember.”
The trembling becomes more pronounced now. Even Adriano notices it, which is the only reason he steps forward.
“It’s okay,” he tells her comfortingly.
I rise to my feet and walk back to my desk. I need to put as much distance between me and the girl as possible.
I feel a tiny bit better when I settle back into my seat. It reminds me of who I am: Lucio Mazzeo, don of the Mazzeo mafia.
She is just a little girl who’s taken a wrong turn into my world.
“Where’s your mother?” I ask.
I don’t voice the underlying reason for my question. The truth is, I don’t believe her mother is dead.
Not anymore.
But Evie doesn’t reply this time. All I get is a noncommittal shake of her head.
“You don’t know?”
She shakes her head again.
“Do you know who I am?” I ask.
There’s a long pause.
“My papa,” she says, though she sounds uncertain.
“Who told you that?” I ask. “The man who brought you here?”
She nods.
“What do you think of that?”
Her eyes go wide, and I immediately regret asking the question. She’s too young to answer it in the first place.
“You look… scary,” she says.
I almost smile. “You’re observant.”
“Are you scary?”
I raise my eyebrows. “Sometimes.”
Her head drops again, blocking her expression from view. She says something, but it’s so low I can’t hear.
“What did you say?”
She clasps her little hands together. “I want to go home,” she says, and this time, her voice cracks.
She starts crying.
I just sit there, completely ill-equipped to comfort her.
Adriano glances at me. He’s not sure what to do, either.
“Take her back to the common room,” I tell him, speaking over her sobs. “Keep her there until I figure out what to do.”
Adriano steers the girl out of my office. The door shuts and silence descends again.
But it’s a completely alien silence. Like my whole world just shifted.
Everything feels wrong. Out of place. Broken.
I stare down at the three-sentence note that had accompanied Evie here.
She’s your daughter. Her mother is dead. She’s your responsibility now.
No explanations.
No details.
Just mysteries wrapped up in mysteries.
I’m still looking at the note when Adriano walks back in.
“How’re you holding up?” he asks.
I crumple the note and fling it across the room.
“What the fuck?” I snarl by way of an answer.
“My sentiments exactly,” he agrees. “It has to be true though, right…? I mean, you have to admit the kid looks like you.”
“No, she doesn’t,” I snap. “She has my eyes. But the rest of her… she looks like her mother.”
“It’s definitely Sonya then?” he asks.
But I know it’s a rhetorical question.
It can only be Sonya.
Sonya had disappeared seven years ago.
The girl is six.
The math works out too fucking perfectly.
“Sonya Prescott,” Adriano voices softly. “Fuck. I was sure she was dead.”
“I always knew there was a possibility she was still out there,” I admit.
“What?” Adriano balks. “We had a funeral for her, Lucio.”
“Do you think I forgot?” I say. “But no matter how much digging we did, a body never surfaced. There was no trail, no indication that she’d been taken by my enemies. It was just easier to believe she was dead.”
“Yeah. I never liked her.”
“I’m aware.”
“She was pregnant when she disappeared,” Adriano says, though really it’s more of a guess.
“Apparently.”
I know he’s trying to gauge my reaction, but I honestly don’t know myself. My head is clogged with old memories and new betrayals.
“What are you gonna do?” Adriano asks.
“I don’t know yet,” I mutter under my breath. “This is no place for a child.”
I turn my back on him and stare out my window. The grounds of my mansion sprawl into the distance. Stone and shadow as far as the eye can see.
The world beyond my window is the same as it’s ever been. Bleak. Brutal. Unforgiving.
That fragile look in Evie’s eyes wouldn’t last a second here.
“Lucio?”
“Hm?”
“There are places we can put her,” he suggests. “Places that will take her, no questions asked.”
I weigh the possibility. Giving her up. Pretending she’d never arrived on my doorstep. Scrubbing her from my memory entirely.
And I know one thing for certain, even if everything else is still shrouded in mystery:
I’m not fucking doing that.
I frown. “I may not have known of her existence until a few minutes ago. But she’s still my fucking blood. I’m not putting her in an orphanage.”
“It doesn’t have to be an orphanage,” Adriano goes on, unfazed. “There are foster homes. We can find a nice couple—a rich couple—to take her. She’ll be well-looked-after and you can keep tabs on her, if you want to.”
The suggestion makes sense. It might even be the right choice for all parties concerned.
But it still doesn’t sit well with me.
“No.”
“No?”
“She’s not going to anyone else,” I announce.
She’s your responsibility now.
Whoever wrote the note—no matter what their real intentions were—they were right about that.
Adriano raises his eyebrows. “You’re sure?”
“Certain.”
“Brother, don’t take this the wrong way,” Adriano says cautiously. “But do you think you are capable of being her father?”
It’s a good question.
One I don’t have an answer to right now.
My old man’s face floats in the recesses of my subconscious. I see his grizzly, salt-and-pepper beard. His small, dark eyes. The furious, disgusted expression he always wore when I was around.
What is a “father,” anyways?
The old bastard I’m picturing gave birth to me, yes.
But he wasn’t my fucking father.
Not after what he did.
So I have no model of a ‘good’ father to go by. No frame of reference.
All I have are my instincts. And I’m not even sure I can rely on them in this instance.
“I’ll need someone to look after her for me,” I say, ignoring Adriano’s question altogether.
“I can look into live-in nannies,” Adriano tells me. “I’ll make sure to do extensive background checks. We’ll need someone discreet, but I can have a few different non-disclosure agreements written up to take care of that.”
“Don’t bother.”
Adriano frowns. “What do you mean?”
“I have a better idea,” I murmur. “A way to kill two birds with one stone.”
“You already have a nanny in mind?” he asks.
“As a matter of fact, I do. She’s in my cellar right now.”
4
Charlotte
INSIDE A JAIL CELL IN THE MAZZEO MANSION BASEMENT
Oh, God—is that blood?
Despite my better judgement, I inch closer to the dark, concrete walls and peer closer.
Yep, definitely blood.
Old blood, by the looks of it.
Gross.
Horrifying.
And yet somehow, I’m more alarmed by the plethora of scratches that have been etched into the walls of this basement jail cell.
As though someone before me tried to claw their way out.
When Lucio’s thugs first dragged me down here an hour ago, I was almost relieved to see the glossy hardwood floors and handcrafted stone shelves bearing dusty, expensive-looking wine bottles.
But then they kept on dragging me past all that.
Past gilded frames of priceless art.
Past racks of ancient medieval weapons.
Past what had to be an absurdly priceless collection of vintage sports cars.
And then the luxury ended abruptly, and I was hurled into a dark, frigid alcove at the back.
Millions of dollars of collectibles lay on one side of an ugly iron door.
The other side held cobwebs, rat droppings, and dried old blood.
Guess which side I ended up on?
The thugs didn’t say a word as they dumped me into the cell and slammed the door shut. The clunk of a heavy lock sliding into place added insult to injury.
That was an hour ago.
To my credit, I lasted almost forty-five minutes before the panic set in.
It arrived in a hurry.
One minute, I was breathing calmly. Damn near meditating. Coaching myself through this like it was just a tiny bump in the road of life and I’d be out of here in a jiffy.
The next minute, I found myself hyperventilating and pacing back and forth, back and forth, back and forth.
Like this four-by-four foot jail cell was a palace worth exploring.
My adrenaline is burning like rocket fuel, consuming all the calories I’d consumed just a few hours ago in the restaurant.
The hunger is back with a vengeance.
The same hunger that landed me here in the first place.
I walk towards the heavy inner door that separates me from the basement beyond.
It’s mostly thick, unyielding iron. But set in the middle of it is a smallish square grille of interlocking steel bars.
Just big enough for me to poke the tips of my fingers through.
I do just that—shoving my hands into the grooves and shaking as hard as I can.
I scream, just for added effect.
“Fuuuck!”
The word echoes within the enclosed space. My own voice sent back to me, distorted and haunting, sends shivers up and down my spine.
It doesn’t do me much good.
Just leaves me with a hoarse throat and painful indents on my fingertips.
The echoes die down, swallowed up by the darkness. I can’t see much through the grille.
All I have is blood on the walls and chills on the back of my neck.
And questions.
So many questions.
Do They know I’m gone?
Will They come for me?
Surely, They will have realized I’m missing by now… right?
Reality backs me into a corner and I slide down the wall. I wrap my hands around my knees and rock back and forth, trying to stay calm.
“Breathe, Charlotte,” I beg myself. “Just fucking breathe.”
But the truth is sinking in fast.
And this cell is too small to run from it.
I try to talk my own thoughts down, because they’re getting faster and uglier and more insistent.
If I keep going at this rate then I’ll be insane before the sun rises again.
Of course They’re not coming for you.
They probably think you’re dead.
And even if They know you’re alive, They have no idea where to find you.
I don’t even know where I am.
I’d been blindfolded the moment I was pushed into the massive black jeep that had brought me here.
It wasn’t until I’d been dragged in front of that mob-connected asshole that I realized why the beefy dude at the restaurant was going through all the trouble.
Of all the restaurants I could have chosen, I’d picked the one owned by one of the most notorious crime lords in the State.
Lucio Mazzeo.
The name alone makes me shiver.
I know the stories. The reputation.
They’ve always been terrified of him. They hate him. Fear him. Envy him.
But one thing’s for sure—he’s definitely not what I’d expected.
His eyes are such a piercing gray.
No, that’s not right. They’re silver. Glistening and intelligent and cruel.
I’d almost call them beautiful.
But one look at the rest of him and I’d realized just how wrong that word was.
Beauty implies softness, gentility, grace.
Lucio is none of those.
His eyes are silver like the blade of a knife. Just as sharp. Just as cold.
I close my eyes now in the darkness of this cell and his face is right there in my mind, as clear as if he were still standing in front of me.
I see the scar that slices across the right side of his face. Like a half-moon arcing down from his brow to the corner of his harsh lips.
I see the brutal angle of his jaw. The dark stubble.
And more—I still sense the all-consuming scent of him.
Danger and cologne and gin.
Ever
ything about him seemed designed to invite me in. I’d been in his presence all of what—fifteen minutes? Maybe twenty?
And my thighs had been clenched together the whole damn time. From the very moment I’d taken in the mere size of him.
Six feet plus of muscle, tattoos, and intimidation.
It makes sense why he reigns supreme in this city. Why They hate him so much—but don’t dare to face him down directly.
Only a fool would cross a man like that.
And only a fool would be attracted to him.
But just as Mama likes to remind me every time we speak, we Dunn women have always had a weakness for dangerous men.
I hate that we have that in common.
Which is why I’m determined to resist all my self-destructive impulses.
I made a promise to myself years ago that I would not end up like her.
Her whole life, she’s been eager to trade anything in exchange for love.
Her body. Her silence. Her self-respect.
I’d rather be respected than loved.
I freeze when I hear the sound of approaching footsteps.
Someone’s coming for me.
I bolt up to my feet just as the outer door to the room clangs open. For a brief moment, I see the low light from the wine cellar.
Then his gigantic frame blocks it all from view.
Lucio walks in alone and pulls the door shut behind him. The sound bounces off the walls like thunder as he steps forward.
I move closer to the cell door that still separates us, my eyes studying his expression warily.
He watches me closely, but his expression is carefully composed. It gives nothing away.
“I didn’t realize that I was such a threat to your personal safety,” I call out.
I’m deliberately trying to be as sarcastic as possible. I need to show him I won’t be intimidated.
“Big guy like yourself scared of a little girl like me. I wouldn’t have guessed it.”
He shrugs, completely unaffected by the insult.
“You think I wanted to frighten you?” he asks. “No, no. This little cell is not about fear. It’s about humility.”
“Excuse me?”
“You needed to be put in your place.”
The small, rational part of my brain is telling me that he’s goading me. That, by getting angry, I’m playing right into his hands.
But my impulses have always been stronger than my sense of reason.