Chapter 32
LENA
“My birth mother? I don’t understand.” Questions explode like gunshots inside my skull. Too many to process all at once. “How is that possible? How do you know? What—” My voice falters. “What was her name?”
Rem flattens his hand over my chest, my heart rioting against his palm. “Maria.”
“Maria?” I don’t realize I’m crying until I taste salt on my lips. “Tell me more.”
Rem’s expression darkens, concern pinching his brows. “I don’t know very much, piccolina, and I doubt you’re going to like what I do know.”
“Not a good enough reason to keep any more secrets.”
After only a slight hesitation Rem nods, stepping away and settling himself onto a nearby barstool, muscled arms crossed over his gorgeous chest. His attention dances between my face and the knife I’m still holding, my meager defense against what’s happening right now.
“A few months ago, Aldo told me to find a missing person. He gave me a name, a location, and a date.”
“That’s it? You can find someone on so little?”
“With enough time and motivation, I can find anyone with less. And Aldo provided the motivation that we understand best: revenge. He said that the woman betrayed him, then vanished. Aldo was very clear that I was to find her and bring her back to him.”
“Bring her back for what?” I prod at the air with my knife. “What was he planning to do to her?”
Rem watches the blade’s point. “Nothing nice.”
“Kill her?”
“Betrayal is the ultimate sin in our world, Lena. The punishment is commensurate with the crime.”
“Then maybe it’s a good thing she’s already dead.
” I feel like my heart is being ripped in two.
Torn apart by the man I thought I knew, and the one sitting in front of me now.
Mangled by a mother I’ve never met, and what her past means for my future.
“How do you know Aldo’s missing woman is my birth mother? ”
“Your necklace.”
My free hand flies to my neck, fingers threading around the delicate chain.
“Cazzo!” Rem squeezes the back of his neck, a new tension filling his large frame.
“It was like some demented twist of fucking fate, piccolina. That night of our wedding, when you put the necklace on—I knew I recognized the pendant, I just didn’t know why or from where.
It wasn’t until I went through some old photos that I saw it.
Clear as day, inset in a photo of a baby whose mother had died after giving birth.
The necklace was all the hospital had to identify both the woman and child.
Especially because the mother was admitted under a what turned out to be a fake name. ”
I force myself to focus, to process everything Rem is saying as fast as I possibly can.
Momentary hope, blind and reckless, makes me feel lightheaded. “But that just proves that the necklace is my mother’s. That I was the baby in the picture. It doesn’t prove a connection between my birth mom and the woman Aldo sent you to find.”
“On its own, the picture doesn’t. But the man who gave it to me can.” Rem rakes his fingers through his hair.
My stomach churns at the memory of doing the same thing last night as he worshiped me. Loved me. Images that cut to the quick as he keeps talking, killing my hope that he’s made a mistake.
“My contact, he’s meticulous, neurotic. Compulsive.
And very old fashioned. He keeps hardcopy records going back decades.
Newspaper clippings, flyers, advertisements.
Millions of pieces of paper and he knows what’s on each one.
He gave me the photo of the necklace when I went to him about Aldo’s missing woman months ago, back when all I had was a name, location, and date.
All these years later, he still remembers seeing her at the end of her pregnancy.
She had come to him needing help. He remembers her pendant.
It stood out, he said. Must’ve been something precious since it was the only possession from her old life she refused to part with. ”
“What do you mean, her old life?”
“She was on the run, Lena. Desperate for a new identity. That’s why Maria went to see my contact in the first place.
He makes the most flawless fake identities on this side of the country, and, for the right price, he can erase all traces of your previous one from the face of the earth.
He confirmed that she paid him for it all—helping her escape her old life as Maria and start a fresh one under a new name. ”
“But she didn’t make it.” We both know how my mother’s story ended.
The ache in my chest is reflected in Rem’s eyes.
“Maria must not have gotten very far before she went into labor. The hospital where she gave birth is just one town over from where my contact lives. Which is how he got his hands on the picture of you and the necklace to begin with. He used to pass through that town regularly and it was small enough that, at the time, it had a news bulletin in the town hall. That’s where he saw the church flier that had your baby picture and the pendant, a request for information from the nuns at the hospital before they moved you to the orphanage. ”
“It’s still circumstantial.”
“He identified her.”
“What? How?”
“There was a photo in her records at the hospital,” Rem says.
“Something the nuns kept in case anyone came to identify her later. I showed him that picture yesterday, Lena. My contact clearly remembers her as the woman who came in as Maria, heavily pregnant, wearing that unique pendant, running for her life. Your birth mom is the same woman Aldo’s been searching for. ”
“The woman Aldo wants dead.” I’m hit by a wave of lightheadedness. I must wobble on my feet because Rem reaches for me. I wave him off, the knife’s blade glinting between us. “What happens now?”
“Lena, put the knife down.”
Rem is so close I can smell his skin. Can draw blood so easily. He’s the one who told me to protect myself when I feel at risk, even from him. I keep my blade steady. “What did Maria do to make Aldo hate her so much?”
“I don’t know. I don’t care. Nothing about their past matters right now.” Ignoring the weapon between us, my husband cups my jaw. “The only thing that matters now is that I’m not going to let anything about their past get in the way of our future. Nothing’s changed, Lena. You’re mine to protect.”
“Everything’s changed. How can you not see that?”
Rem steps closer, wrapping his palm around the base of my skull.
The move brings his chest flush to the edge of the blade.
He doesn’t react when a shallow line of red blooms beneath the steel.
“My promise to you hasn’t changed. My vow to protect you hasn’t changed.
” The emotion in Rem’s voice makes my throat dry. “My feelings for you haven’t changed.”
For one second, my heart flies. Rem has feelings for me. I’m not in this all alone. It’s exactly what I wanted.
Except…it’s not.
Not anymore.
I stare at the face that’s become so beloved. At the eyes I’d happily drown in, the lips I’ve become obsessed with. At the chest guarding the heart I’ve coveted, my own pulverized into a bloody mess.
I look at the man who has eaten me up, body and soul, and can’t reconcile the Rem I fell for with the one who has kept so many secrets from me.
“Your feelings haven’t changed,” I repeat, spine stiff. “The homicidal ones, you mean?”
My comment evokes more of a reaction than my knife. Rem’s fingers dig into the soft flesh of my neck, his jaw ticking. “I was not going to kill you.”
“Maybe not then,” I press, “but what about now?”
Rem curses. He brings his body tight to mine and I don’t need to look down to know that my blade has cut deeper. I want to push Rem away, for his own good. But I can’t. Not until I get an answer.
“What are you going to do, Rem, when you have to tell your uncle you’ve found his missing woman?
What happens when you have to tell him that you’ve married the daughter of a traitor?
” I could be cutting open my own chest, this hurts so much.
“Maria’s not here to punish, but I am. What does your sacred code say about that, huh?
Does the daughter pay for the sins of the mother?
I know I’ve not lived in this world long, but that sounds pretty on brand for your family.
So, tell me—what are you going to do when your capo orders you to kill me for a second time? ”
The question hangs above our heads. A sword waiting to fall. Then, on a terrible groan, Rem fists his other hand in the back my shirt, arm tight against my lower back, and drops his forehead to my shoulder. “He won’t order that,” Rem grits out, his breath hot above my breast.
“He will.” I place my free hand on Rem’s back, feeling his muscles flicker beneath my touch. “You know he will.”
“I won’t let him.” Rem’s breathing stutters. His grip on my neck becomes painful. “He’s not taking you, Lena. I swear on everything I hold holy, I won’t let anyone hurt you. Not even me.”
“Too late for that.”
Rem lifts his face, his hands falling from me. I put space between us. We’re a thread pulled past its limit. Snapped and fraying.
I look at my husband, trying to ignore the blood that has trickled down his abdomen and transferred to my white shirt. “You hurt me. You lied to me. Knowing what I know now, how am I supposed to live with you? How am I supposed to trust you?”
“I didn’t lie, Lena. I just didn’t tell you—”
“The truth?” With two words, the fight drains out of me.
I drop the knife on the ground, not caring if my toes become collateral damage.
Rem’s expression tells me I look as broken-hearted as I feel.
“I don’t know how to stay here with you.
I don’t know how to begin to process everything I’ve learned today.
And I sure as hell don’t know how I can stick around for when your uncle returns. ”
I haul in a breath, the ringing in my head making it hard to hear myself say, “I’m leaving.”
“No.”
“You don’t have a say. Not anymore.”
“The fuck I don’t.” Rem points at the rings encircling my left ring finger. “You’re my fucking wife, Lena. To have and hold, remember? I’m not letting you leave, not when your life is still in danger.”
“An argument that’s hard to buy when the threat is coming from inside the house.”
I don’t let myself think—to second guess—as I turn and walk away. It’s only when I’m halfway across the room that I feel Rem’s heat behind me. His words on my skin as he says, “I choose you.”
I stop, twist to meet his crystal-clear gaze. “What?”
“If Aldo wants to punish you for Maria’s betrayal, if it comes down to you or my family…” Rem takes one of my limp hands, threads our fingers together. Presses my skin to his hot lips. “I choose you.”
I blink, blindsided by his admission. By the depth of feeling burning in his eyes. “You can’t. Your family is everything to you. You can’t pick me over them. You just… can’t.”
“I can and I will.” Rem tucks a strand of hair behind my ear gently. The possessiveness in his expression is fierce. “You’re my wife. I choose you every time. You’re mine, piccolina, and I’m yours. Because I am so fucking in love with you.”