4. Liana
FOUR
LIANA
Present
T he complex I had built to keep Amara safe stretched along the craggy coastline in the part of Venezuela that nobody cared about. The nearest town was Puerto La Cruz, where all our supplies came from, was miles away, and best of all, none of the locals bothered us.
The whole property was large, a gated piece of land with three buildings. Aside from the residence, one housed security personnel and the other stored our vehicles. The latter had a discreet tunnel system that led down to the ocean and held my emergency boats.
Hide in plain sight , Kian recommended.
After he rescued us, my plan was to leave the criminal world behind, keep myself on the straight and narrow, and have a somewhat normal life. I resorted to maid and housework in a resort to keep us alive. I even ran into Royce Ashford during my short-lived career.
But it didn’t work.
My temper was too short and my child’s health bills too expensive.
So I took matters into my own hands and I resorted to the only thing I knew: running a criminal empire.
My first step was reaching out to Kian Cortes.
Then the Casa Segura compound was born, courtesy of Kian. He’d purchased a large plot of land in Venezuela for me, right under Santiago’s nose, while my husband and Kian’s brother searched the world for me.
Of course I had to promise Kian my alliance and allegiance for funds to kickstart my own “business” and a compound that would keep Amara and me safe. He came through, and from that day forward, I began becoming my mother.
Maybe I was paranoid, but after years of being held against my will, I had no intention of ever being taken prisoner again. I almost died when I fought my captors. I almost died when I took it in silence. There was no winning with them. But I would never be silent again.
Shaking my gloomy thoughts away, I focused on the here and now.
My daughter was safe and alive, but the machines surrounding her, constantly beeping, were a countdown to the inevitable.
I took in Amara’s frail body, wrapped in blankets, and made my way outside for some fresh air. Her sickness made her too tired to go out and play, so we made this into our routine.
Every day, I’d take her to the cliffs where she’d stare out to the sea greedily.
She would often say we lived in heaven, not even realizing she’d met the devil himself and had no memory of the day she was brought to me. She’d tasted hell, and there’d be no way we’d ever go back to it. She deserved better. She deserved the whole fucking world.
The weather was warm, but Amara still shuddered in my arms as I brought her closer to my chest. As I paced up and down the length of the worn path on the top of the cliff, I realized I might be running out of options. The girl needed a liver and there was only one immediate and guaranteed match that I could think of.
Her birth mother.
Yet, I was terrified of bringing Emory DiLustro into Amara’s life. I didn’t want to lose her or risk her looking at me differently. I wanted to remain her whole world, just as she was mine. Otherwise, there wouldn’t be much left for me after I executed my revenge.
A small, weak voice startled me out of my thoughts. “Mother Liana?”
“Yes, my treasure?” I met her deep blue eyes, dull from the pain. The sight gutted me, but the knowledge that I could end it by having Emory brought to me terrified me even more. What if I lost my daughter to her birth mother?
“Do you miss the cold?”
I sighed tiredly. I did miss the snow, the ice-capped mountains, and the frigid air whipping at my skin. When Kian had offered a way out of the hell Perez kept my daughter and me in, I’d even considered returning to Siberia, but I knew it’d be the first place people would look for me.
So we stuck to Venezuela, where Amara was safe, and I worked my way through my revenge list. There was only one person left—The Mistress—but she’d soon regret the day she was born. She would experience firsthand what Liana Volkov’s wrath was all about.
“Do you miss it, Mother Liana?” Amara’s weak voice repeated, reminding me she was still waiting for an answer.
“Sometimes,” I responded truthfully, pacing while cradling her in my arms. “But being with you is the most important thing to me.”
“You have to promise me something,” she murmured, her eyes darting back to the vast blue horizon.
“Anything, my treasure,” I vowed.
“When I’m gone, you’ll go where there’s a lot of snow.”
Intense pain sent sparks through my body. Just the thought of being without her rattled my teeth, and I feared what would become of the world.
“You’re not going anywhere,” I told her, my voice sharper than I intended. “I won’t let anything happen to you, my beautiful Mara.” I resorted back to the shorter version of her name, making a promise to her and myself. “If it’s the last thing I do, you’ll have a long, beautiful life ahead of you.”
This little human was my last connection to humanity. Yes, my twin was somewhere on this planet, but that chapter was over and done with. She’d hate the woman I’d become. The mirror image of our mother.
“I can feel it,” she murmured, her eyes fluttering shut, those dark lashes stark against her pale hollowed cheeks.
It was precisely at that moment I decided to make a deal with Atticus Popov and have Emory DiLustro brought to me.
And to do that, I’d betray the only man who’d ever helped me.