Page 69 of Ruthless Redemption
Shit.I inch the knife behind me, slipping it beneath the waistband of my boxers, the blade digging into my tailbone. “No. What are you doing up so late,principessa?”
“I couldn’t sleep. So I thought I’d crawl into bed with Mom… But when I got here, I started to wonder if maybe you were already in there… ya know… with her.”
She’s fishing. Attempting to broach a subject I won’t touch with a ten-foot pole.
“Not at all. Enjoy your time with your mother.” I backtrack into my room.
Her shadowed silhouette approaches, her footfalls short and sharp. “You don’t want to go in there instead of me?”
“I think she’d much prefer your company, Stella. Now go get some sleep.” I grab the door handle.
“Wait.” She places her hand on the wood. “She said something to me today that I’m hoping you might be able to get out of my head.”
Warning sirens fill my ears. Loud. Deafening. “Ask me in the morning.”
“Please. I’m obsessing over it. She said you were familiar with our enemies.Our,” she repeats. “Meaning mine and hers, not my Uncle Cole’s. Which got me thinking, because as far as I know, I only have one enemy, and that’s the family who abducted me and killed my father.”
Jesus Christ.
“So, I’d like to know how familiar you are with them. Because she meant the Costas, right?”
Jesus fucking Christ.
“Stella, this isn’t something we can discuss. Any questions you have need to be directed at your mother.”
“Why?” Her shadowed face peers up at me, her features unreadable through the darkness. “Because I’m too young? Because I won’t understand?”
“Because I don’t want you to be scared of me,” I answer truthfully.
She falls quiet, the thickening silence wrapping its hands around my throat.
“Go to bed,principessa.”
“How familiar are you with them?” she whispers. “Are you, like, friends or something?”
I keep my mouth shut, my hand tightening on the door handle.
“Do you work for them? Do you help them? Are you the reason I was taken?”
“Jesus. Fuck. No.”Motherfucker.This kid is treating my paternal heart strings like a fucking jungle gym, and I never even knew I had any. “I despise the Costas,” I seethe. “I hate them just as much as you do.”
“Then why would I be scared of you?” She steps closer, her foot nudging my door wider, the proximity exposing the glint of something metallic in her hand.
A knife?
“You looking to stab me,principessa?”
“All I’m looking for is the truth, and as much as I love my mom, I know she’ll never give it to me.”
I could disarm her. With a strike of a hand or the kick of my foot, she would cease to be a threat. But I refuse to upset her.
“It’s funny. My mom thinks I’m this innocent little kid, but I’ve never been that way. I’ve never been a kid at all. And Tobias hasn’t either.” She steps closer again, forcing my retreat. “So after we were abducted, and kept in the dark about what happened, we decided to figure it out on our own. We spent a year learning all there was to know about the Costa family. We tracked school records for Abri, Remy, and Salvatore. We got copies of birth records. We hired someone to search newspaper archives. And even discovered an older son of Emmanuel’s that nobody mentions on social media. But do you know who did mention him?” She cocks her head. “A girl called Grace in his senior yearbook.”
“Stella,” I warn.
“I knew who you were the moment I got off the jet. I know all about you. What I don’t understand is why you now call yourself Matthew and what you’re doing with my mom. Does she know who you are?”
“Yes.” I clench my jaw.
