Chapter 36
Chapter Thirty-Six
Matteo
I had a child.
A daughter,
And her name was Lily.
She was five years old.
I HAD A DAUGHTER WHOSE NAME WAS LILY AND SHE WAS FIVE YEARS OLD.
The words went around and around in my head, over and over again, as I drove my nondescript rental car through the London streets to the hotel I had booked on the plane.
My hands curled around the steering wheel, and clenched so tightly that my knuckles popped and turned white. Closing my eyes, I sucked in a deep breath, and a chorus of horns and angry British voices rose around me.
My eyes snapped back open just in time to swerve and narrowly miss a motorcyclist.
I really had to get myself together, but I had a damn daughter.
All of this time, Sophia had kept her hidden from me. She had fought to keep her safe, and I had known, deep down I had known, that she’d had a child.
The signs were all there. The stretch marks, the maturity, and the giving heart had always been part of Sophia’s character, but they had trebled. She was always trying to make people happy.
Her brother.
Me.
I hadn’t really thought about why she had agreed to the arrangement, and now I knew. Her brother knew she had a child, and he was using her against Sophia, getting her to do what he wanted like a pawn in a chess game.
Did she have a choice? Yes, of course she did, but it suddenly made so much more sense.
That’s why there had been poison hidden. She had taken it from her brother but she hadn’t used it.
Hell, she had so many chances to use it before I found it. She could have killed me a hundred different ways. She could have smothered me in my sleep or any number of things.
But she hadn’t. Because she had been torn between the love of her daughter and keeping me safe.
Our daughter, I reminded myself quickly, and God, the idea was alien to me, but it felt right.
Yeah, Sophia was torn between keeping her secret, but she had been happy and safe in her love for me.
Or maybe it wasn’t love. Maybe it was just because she was a sweet woman with a kind soul, and she didn’t want to be a murderer.
Really, it didn’t matter.
She didn’t have a choice but to do what her brother demanded, but she could have told me.
She should have told me. I would have been able to protect them.
My laughter bubbled up as I slipped into the cool darkness of the underground parking lot.
I could say she should have told me all I wanted. I could even tell myself that I would do the right thing, but hadn’t she just done that? And hadn’t I walked away from her? When she needed me most, I had walked away and not looked back.
Sophia hadn’t told me, because at my core, I was selfish, and she knew it.
Again, my hands tightened around the steering wheel, and my foot slammed on the brake.
I needed to go back. That was the right thing to do. Sophia needed me, and so did Lily.
Gio had her, and God knows…
I was about to do a U-turn when two men stepped into view. My men, waiting for me.
Instantly, my eyebrows slammed down. If they were down here waiting for me, then it was important.
Rolling down the window, I nudged the car forward. “What is it?” I snapped. There was more anger in my voice than I meant there to be, but that was because I wanted to get back to help Sophia.
After all, I should never have left in the first place, and I should not have let her go so easily six years ago.
They exchanged a look.
“This best be important.” I revved the engine.
“We have some info.” One muttered and looked away. “You need to come upstairs.”
My eyebrows shot up. “Sounds like an order…”
“It’s not, Matteo,” he said quietly but quickly. “But you need to see this to believe it.”
That piqued my interest. I couldn't deny that. “What…” I began to say, and then nodded. Five minutes wouldn’t hurt, and I could call Sophia and tell her to hold off on calling the cops or whatever other foolish idea she would have had.
The room when I walked inside was basic. I wasn’t going to be here long enough to need anything lavish, and anyway, I was trying to keep a low profile.
There were more than a dozen men in the room, some on their phones, but most surrounding an open laptop on the table.
“What’s going on?” I asked, and the door slammed behind me.
They parted like the Red Sea.
Crossing the room, I scanned the computer screen and then read it again.
I couldn’t comprehend it. Sure, the words made sense, but that was about it.
Scraping back a chair, I fell into it and pinched the skin between my eyebrows.
Yeah, okay, it did make sense, but that didn’t mean I wanted to believe it.
“He knew,” I mumbled. My fingernails dug into my skin painfully. It hurt, but the pain helped to focus my mind.
“Yeah. There was a paternity test done when the child was born,” someone muttered to the side of me. “But I think you know that now, don’t you? That you have a kid.” His eyes widened. “With Sophia.”
My head snapped up. “Her name is Lilly.” Shaking my head, I tried to calm my anger. “But yes, this isn’t news.”
“He knew she was seeing you.”
I groaned. “I know that as well. This isn’t news to me. So this best not be the only thing you have…”
If it was, I was going to murder every single one of them, ideally with my bare hands, because I needed to get back to them.
To the only woman I had ever loved and the child I didn’t know I had.
They needed me, and this time I wasn’t going to fail them.
“Did you know that her parents put you forward as a candidate to marry her before her first engagement?”
My head jerked. “What?”
“We hacked some emails. You were their first choice. They wanted to…”
“If I was their first choice for their daughter, then why…”
Jesus, that would have made this so much easier. I would be her husband by now, and none of this would have happened.
They stared at me silently.
“Gio,” I muttered. “Gio talked them out of it.” Shaking my head, I sprang to my feet. Why would he do that? Back then, we had been friends. Who better to marry his sister than me?
“Any idea why?”
Another look passed between them, and again, they looked at the computer screen. “There’s more. We don’t know how he found out, but …”
Flicking through the tabs, I felt my blood run cold. Gio hadn’t just known about me and Sophia. He had told his parents we weren’t a good match even before we had started seeing each other.
He had been working against me for years, even when I had thought we were closer than brothers.
Another tab and another secret was laid out in front of me. One that had been right there in my face the entire time. I’d just been too blind to see it.
Gio had been playing the long game. All this time, he had been playing the long game.
“Her parents…” My voice wobbled, and I had to clear my throat to regain my composure. “Jesus fucking Christ. They were going to pass him over.”
“Yeah for Sophia. If she could find a suitable match. Someone who would love and care for her and not just use her for the power she would have.”
My hand closed into a fist and came down hard on the spindly table. The top split, but it didn’t break, and pain shot through my arm.
But pain was good. It would make me focus, and I needed to focus now more than ever before.
“Someone like me.” My voice was deathly quiet. “That’s why he needed to put a stop to it. If Sophia and I had been married, or even together, he would have lost the seat as head of his family.”
“Yeah, she had to be married or…”
Again, I slammed my hands down. “Or be pregnant and expecting to be married.”
“I would have married her.” It felt like I screamed it, but it came out as a whisper.
It hit me in a rush, so hard and fast that I fell back on the chair, and it rocked back onto its legs. It threatened to topple over.
“He killed his family.”
No one spoke. They didn’t need to. It was the only thing that made sense. Gio knew I was in love with his sister. He knew that I would marry her, and if that happened, he would lose all the power.
So he had orchestrated their deaths to tear us apart. He had told the entire world that I had murdered a couple whom I adored as much as my own parents and sent the love of my life away, filling her head with lies as he went
Then she was pregnant, and that complicated matters even more. No wonder he hid her, because Sophia and I sharing a child together would be enough to give her control.
So why bring her back into this now?
That was the part that didn’t make sense to me. If he hadn’t brought Sophia back into my life, I would never have found her.
So why now?
Lily.
Deep down, I knew it was because of my daughter.
If Sophia killed me, and my men killed her…
I sucked in a deep breath.
If we died, then Lily would be the heir to two criminal families, and as her only living relative, he would get custody.
All of this was for power.
“Yeah, there’s more…”
I shook my head. “I’ve seen enough for now. Someone find out where that no-good asshole Gio is. Do it now. I don’t care what it takes. Just find him. You can burn this city to the ground for all I care.”
Yanking out my phone, I headed toward the door.
“Where are you…”
“To Sophia. Gio has Lily, and I need to get back to her before she does something self-sacrificing and stupid.”
Quickly, I dialled the number. It was answered straight away.
“Matteo?” This time, Sophia’s roommate didn’t bark at me. She sobbed. Her voice broke with panic and too many emotions to hold in. “Matteo, that’s you, isn’t it? You need—I don't know what to do,” she wailed.
I went completely still. Not even my heart seemed to beat. “What’s happened?” I hissed. “Where is Sophia?”
There was nothing but sobbing on the phone line.
Fuck. I tugged at my hair.
“Nat is someone hurt?” I needed her to calm down. These hysterics weren’t doing anyone any good. “Are you hurt? Put Sophia on the phone.”
“She’s not here.”
The world tilted on its axis. “What do you mean she’s not there?”
“She got a call from her brother, and…” Another hiccuping sob. “She rushed out and into a car I didn’t recognize at the end of the street.”
“Where did she go? Did she tell you anything?”
“No, she didn’t, but she was scared, Matteo. I’ve never seen her look so scared. I think…” Her voice broke. “I think her brother might hurt them.”
I thought so too, and at that moment, I was more afraid than I had ever been.
“I’m going to be there in twenty minutes, okay? Twenty minutes. Write down what you remember before you forget it all, and under no circumstances are you to phone the police, is that understood?”
“But—"
“Is that understood? Sophia and Lily are my family, and I am going to get them back.”