My heart stopped.
“Your father was an informant,” Rafael continued. “Not for us. Against us, initially. He was working with the FBI, feeding them information about Bratva operations. But then he discovered that his handler—Vance Donovan—was corrupt. That Vance was playing both sides, protecting some criminals while prosecuting others, all for profit.”
“No,” I whispered, but even as I said it, I knew it was true.
“David was going to expose him. Was going to burn Vance’s entire operation to the ground.” Rafael took a sip of his scotch. “So Vance killed him first. Made it look like a random murder in a bad neighborhood. And then he needed David’s daughter—a five-year-old girl who might have seen or heard something—to disappear.”
Tears were streaming down my face now, hot and relentless.
“Our men found you outside David’s house,” Rafael said quietly. “You were sitting on the steps in a red coat, clutching a stuffed bear, waiting for your daddy to come home. We knew Vance would come looking for you. Would tie up loose ends. So we took you to Father Vincent’s orphanage, paid him to keep you safe and hidden, and kept watch to make sure Vance never found you.”
“You protected me,” I said, my voice breaking.
“We protected you,” Rafael confirmed. “Because, despite what Vance told you, David Miller was in the process of making a deal with us when he died. He was going to help us bring down corrupt federal agents in exchange for protection for himself, his daughter, and his wife. We would have honored that deal, Cassandra. We would have kept you both safe.”
I couldn’t hold back the sob anymore. It ripped out of me, raw and painful.
“But Vance found you anyway,” Rafael continued. “Years later, in Ohio. He’d been following leads, tracking shell companies, looking for any connection to David Miller’s daughter. And when he finally tracked you down, he saw an opportunity.”
“To use me,” I said bitterly.
“To use you,” Rafael agreed. “To manipulate you. To turn you against us. To make you his weapon.”
I drank the scotch in one burning gulp, barely tasting it.
“That ambush,” Rafael said. “When you gave Vance real intel for the first time. I sent Drew.”
My head snapped up. “You knew?”
“I intercepted your burner phone signal. Traced the tip back to you.” Rafael’s expression was unreadable. “And I sent Drew because I knew he would make it out alive. He’s as ruthless as needed in the moment. And I knew that if things went wrong, if you were in deeper than I thought, Drew would be motivated to protect you. To bring you back.”
“You manipulated both of us,” I said, and there was no accusation in my voice. Just exhausted realization.
“I gave you both a choice,” Rafael corrected. “I could have confronted you immediately. Could have had you killed or imprisoned or exiled. But I wanted you to come to me on your own. Because if I’d told you the truth about Vance, about your father, you wouldn’t have believed me. You would have thought I was lying to protect myself.”
He was right. I wouldn’t have believed him.
“You needed to see it,” Rafael said. “You needed to feel it. Needed to realize on your own that Vance wasn’t who he claimed to be. That his motivations weren’t pure. That he was using you.”
“And if I hadn’t figured it out?” I asked. “If I’d kept working with him?”
Rafael’s eyes went cold. “Then we would be having a very different conversation right now.”
I believed him.
We sat in silence for a long moment, the weight of everything settling over me like a heavy blanket.
“Are you going to kill me?” I finally asked, my voice small.
Rafael chuckled—actually chuckled—and shook his head. “Kill you? No, Cassandra. You haven’t done anything wrong.”
I stared at him in disbelief. “I betrayed you. I accessed classified files. I met with your enemy. I gave him intel that almost got people killed—”
“You protected my nephew,” Rafael interrupted. “You sent that anonymous tip. You saved Drew’s life, Damir’s life, and Kirill’s work. You chose us when it mattered most.”
“But—”
“The only thing you did wrong,” Rafael said, walking to the window, “was take too long to come to me. You should have trusted me sooner. Should have asked me about your father instead of searching in the dark.”
