"If Atticus had been there, I'm certainhewouldn't have missed my presence."
I flinch, glad the others aren't here to hear this.
"If only I'd been better prepared." He clucks his tongue. "I only had a few men with me. I knew they wouldn't be enough with that psychotic one in the mix, but I had to try. It was the best opportunity I'd had to get my hands on them in years. And if I were able to captureoneof them, I could use him to lure the others—which is what I should've done a long time ago."
I shiver.
"Don't worry," he says with mock concern. "I don't ever make the same mistake twice. Losing them in Paris was…unfortunate. I thought I was back at square one, but then—" He chuckles incredulously. "I couldn't have planned it better myself."
Oh no…
"When Linette forwarded your submission to the Find Delilah form and I sawyou—the girl in the ivory dress fromLa Tante Sophistiquée. The very same girl Julian's sons couldn't take their eyes off of…pretending to bemy daughter."
He sighs audibly, gaze turning skyward as if that email was a gift from the Almighty himself.
"Pretending?" I repeat, my attention snagging on the implication. Please let it be true. "So, I'm not…"
His eyes widen, blink, and then he's rubbing at the back of his neck. "Well, not evenIsaw that part coming."
Ambrose crosses the room to me, dropping to a crouch, his dark eyes fixated on my throat and the necklace that rests against it.
I reel back when he reaches for it, but there's nowhere to go, and the man at my back holds me steady as Ambrose plucks the charm from my collar. "I questioned myself over this for days. It looked so like the one your mother had. It really wasn't until I saw it in person that I was sure."
The hope that'd been growing in my chest bursts.
So, I really am his daughter?
"What kind ofmanwould hurt his own daughter?" The venom in my tone is acidic, and it has the intended effect of making him wither beneath it.
"Mydaughter?" he scoffs, and I realize I misunderstood the reason for the twist of his mouth. "Any child ofminewould never have been so pathetic. Your father was the same—the cowardly snake."
My father?
A hollowness opens up inside my chest, expanding until it hurts.
Hewas…
"You killed him." It isn't a question.
"What else should I have done when I found him in my wife's bed? A man I hired and trusted? My own private security."
I wonder if he ever knew about me or if he was even still alive when I was born.
"Don't be sad," Ambrose tells me, a sharp tilt to his mouth. "You can still meet him if you like. I keep him in a special place. When I'm feeling particularly down, looking at his frozen,lifeless eyes always makes me feel…" He trails off with a shiver. "So much better."
Elijah was right. I couldn't have possibly understood before, but I do now.
Ambrose is no man. He's a fucking monster.
"Twisted fuck,"I mutter, feeling like I've lost something, even though it isn't something I ever had.
Except I might've had it—a father. A real one who might've loved me and cared for me and never would've given me up.
Buthetook that.
"Lucky I kept him, too. Made it easier to double-check if you really were the product of his and my wife's infidelity."
The DNA tests. He never used his own; he used a dead man's and put his name on all the documents. But what's another stolen identity after taking the mantle of The White Rose?
