“We have been tied together by fate all this time.” I ran my thumb back and forth over her image on the paper. “I’ll make this right. No matter what it takes.”
A knock on the door snapped my head up. Matteo smirked at me and rapped his knuckles on the shattered wood. “I’ll get that fixed by the end of the day.”
“Everything needs to be fixed.” The weight of it all would crush a lesser man. Good thing my father raised me to take things like this in stride. It was just another day, another series of problems that needed to be fixed. I looked away as Matteo sauntered into the room and dropped onto the couch. Batting floated up around him in tiny puffs that he trapped in his hands. “Anything else?”
He ran his hands across the gouges that ripped the cushions apart. “They were looking for something. The artifact?”
“Maybe.” I twirled my finger through the air then tapped my ear while raising my eyebrows in a silent question.
“It’s clean. I swept the whole house. Whatever their intentions, they didn’t leave any bugs behind. No microphones, no transmitters, no hidden cameras. Could have been nothing more than a scare tactic, with Luca hoping to get lucky and find Lila and Leo unprotected.” He shoved the batting back into the nearest cushion and stood. “They’ll know better next time, and they’ll be prepared.”
“More prepared than this?” I held out my hands to the destruction.
“Yes. Last night gave them information. They know the layout of the house, all our possible exits, and even where Lila slept. Our one saving grace is that Lila wasn’t in her room but Renzo’s. That will confuse them. And they don’t know about the other tunnels. But staying here without changing things up is a gamble.” He stood and kicked at a pile of glass stacked in front of the bookcases. All the globes my father had collected during his travels lay shattered, the largest of them ground into the carpet with Matteo’s heavy strides. “Leo’s awake. He’s in the kitchen with Lila. I thought you’d want to know.”
Leo. My son. He’d woken up early this morning when we left the bunker but had fallen back asleep in Lila’s arms. I’d wanted to spend time with him but waited to let him rest. I held the packet of folders out to Matteo.
“Go over these. See if there’s anything we missed, anything we can use to get a location on Vincenzo and track their next moves.” Like me, Vincenzo liked to keep hidden. It was his brother Luca who flaunted their wealth and connections. “Luca’s the weak link. He’ll want to brag about last night.”
“I’ll find him.” Matteo followed me into the hallway. “I recommend we wait about bringing in carpenters. Any strangers, really. Even deliveries are suspect.”
“Put Renzo to work on it. His men will need something to do in the downtime. They can pick up the furniture. I’m sure a few of them know how to hang drywall and paint.” I didn’t care what happened to the house as long as we maintained the perimeter. Everything else could be fixed later. I trotted down the steps and into the kitchen.
Leo looked up at my approach, his smile stretching wide. “Morning.”
“Good morning.” I rubbed the top of his head and sank onto the stool beside him. “What’s for breakfast?”
“Pancakes.” He stabbed his fork into the stack and lifted it from the plate. “I helped make them.”
“Sounds delicious.” I turned from Leo and found Lila standing at the stove, her gaze glued to the pan where three more pancakes cooked. “Any plans for today?”
“Getting back to normal sounds nice.” There was an edge to her tone that ran through me with an electrical charge.
I stood and rounded the counter to stand beside her. “What does that mean?”
“It means last night never happens again.”
“Which part?” The sound of Leo’s chewing stretched thin between us. “We’re taking every precaution. As for the rest…that’s something we should all discuss together.”
Seeing the two of them together like this stirred the pieces of me I’d thought too broken to ever mend. The guilt I’d endured last night rose with a crushing weight.
“A lot of mistakes were made last night.” Lila looked pointedly at Leo. “Him calling you ‘Papa’ was one.”
I lost my breath. Pain so intense I barely resisted doubling over sucker punched me in the chest. “He’s my son.”
“I never said that.”
“Yes, you did.” I replayed the moment in my mind, and my world shattered. She never said he was my son. Leo asked about calling me papa, and she nodded. Nothing else. It could have been a pity move to help calm me down and give Leo a new focus beyond his fear. “Are you saying he isn’t my son?”
The flat-lipped press of her lips gutted me.
I didn’t believe her, not really. We were too alike, and Lila would do anything—say anything—to protect Leo. She’d killed to protect him. Lying to me would be easy after that.
I draped my head over her shoulder and whispered in her ear. “You can keep denying it, but I will find out the truth once and for all. And when I do, there’s no going back.”
20
LILA
