“Two of her assets went rogue, which is why she was getting the new women from a sex auction,” I recall. Then it hits me. “And that Ward provided the best assets.”
I’m going to be sick.
Elias sold his daughter into being an assassin and Christian took up that mantle to provide capable women. That means he isn’t just grabbing homeless women and prostitutes like he did for the sex auctions. No, he’s grabbing women from their everyday lives. Elias sold Kenzi because she was of no use to him. Without the ability to bear children, he couldn’t make an alliance. Which means that Christian is searching for and taking women just like Kenzi. Barren. Unable to conceive.
Shit.
Then there’s Madam Therese’s cane. It’s an exact replica of the cane my grandfather had with him at the gala. I might chalk it up to coincidence. There are plenty of silver crossed canes out there in the world to buy—except for one small detail. The tiny emblem carved into the wood of the cane just below the knob at the top.
That crest is on Seamus McDonough’s cane as well. It’s also stamped on the paperwork that listed my mother as being sold. Elias never ran the trafficking rings.
Seamus McDonough is the one behind them.
My own grandfather possibly had my mother kidnapped and sold.
And he had help because there was one other place I have seen that emblem, and if I’m right?—
I might never be forgiven.
forty-nine
The day fades into a shady night, the cold breeze wrapping around me, seeping into the wool of my coat and the thick hide of my boots. I need a break from the confines of the bunker. The walls are beginning to close in on me, each new layer of information pushing them that much closer.
I suspected on numerous occasions since Libby’s funeral, but it wasn’t until Mark showed me undeniable proof that it sank in.
How could she keep such a thing a secret?
Fuck.
It drives me bat shit crazy thinking of my sister feeling that she needed to keep such an important thing to herself. The revelation would have shattered her world. I know because when I learned of my true parentage, it did the same to me.
Libby was there for me when I learned the truth.
She was alone when she discovered hers.
Dante Romano is the twin’s biological father.
Had Elias known? Is that why he so easily sold Kenzi?
Kenzi.
Just thinking her name causes the grip on my sore and battered heart to tighten painfully. It feels as if someone has wrapped a tourniquet around it and just keeps tightening and tightening. Sooner or later, it will explode under the tortuous pressure until nothing remains but the cold, dark abyss.
“Gonna freeze my balls off out here,” Vas mumbles, stepping through the open doorway that separates the tunnel system from the forest that surrounds them.
“You didn’t have to follow me out here.”
“Pfft,” Vasily snorts through his nose. “I didn’t follow you,” he insists. “I love being out here in the cold. Reminds me of Russia. So nice… and cold. Freezing.”
“I get it.” I deadpan. “It’s cold.”
Vasily shivers dramatically. “So cold.”
I can’t help but smile at his attempt to cheer me up, but it doesn’t lighten my soul like it normally would. There is too much weighing it down. So many secrets.
“Do you think he knows?”
Vas doesn’t have to ask who I am talking about; he was in the same room as me when Mark dropped the bomb.
