“Aren't you the one who used me as damn collateral to save yourself?” I snapped. “And you’d know all about men who don't love their wives, wouldn’t you?”
“Sienna, if you get at least five million from him, we can both be free of this life,” my father urged. “Bits at a time, and after graduation, we leave the US and start fresh.” His voice softened. “It could be a fresh start for us. Something your mother would want.”
I growled. “How dare you use my mother in this? You didn’t care about her when she was dying; you only cared about yourself! You’re selfish and disgusting, and I hate that I’m your daughter.”
If my father hadn’t changed at fifty-five, he never would. My brain knew it; my heart needed to catch up.
“Sweet pea, you’ve got it all wrong. I—”
“Don't call me that! As a matter of fact, don’t call me again. As of today, you’re dead to me.” I hung up, scrubbed my phone, and returned to the living room.
As I stood at the entrance watching Avit dance with Evie in his arms, while he chatted with his brothers, clarity hit me. Just like the other women, I had fallen for my husband. Yes, he forced me into marriage, but he’d never treated me badly. He protected me and cared for me in ways no one else had.
And I’d do anything to protect him from my father, even if it cost me everything.
Chapter 17 - Avit
“I got you, you piece of shit.”
My head snapped toward Sienna. She sat beside me, furiously tapping on her laptop.
The past few days, she'd been…off. Snarkier. Quieter. Dark circles forming under her eyes. Yesterday, Wexler informed me that during one of her classes, she went off on a student who was harassing someone sitting next to her. Then, she quickly excused herself and sat in the bathroom stall for the rest of the class. Wexler knew she was crying because when he checked on her, he heard her sniffling.
This was affecting Sienna more than I wanted it to.
We kept getting dead-end leads, and outside of her classes, she barely left the office. She studied here, worked here, hunted down the owner of that location here. Every night, she fell asleep behind her laptop, and eventually, I brought in a small bed just so I could move her to something more comfortable.
After the pregnancy reveal, Mariya had called asking how she was doing. She’d mentioned Sienna wasn’t feeling well due to the heavy workload, of almost being done with her master’s, and guilt hit me again. I dragged her into this, but she was as stubborn as I was and refused to back down.
It was almost eleven now—her hair was tousled, falling limply over her shoulders, exhaustion carved into her features—and still, she was the most beautiful woman I’d ever seen.
“Who’s a piece of shit?” I asked.
“Oskar Mosav.”
Wait. What?
“Oskar owns the location? Are you sure?” My voice came out sharper than I expected.
Sienna shot me a deadly glare. “Of course I’m sure,” she snapped. “I’d bid my damn life on it.”
Oskar Mosav.
A fucking business tycoon.
A man with companies spread across the US.
A man who’d appeared out of nowhere five years ago and carved out an empire. We’d crossed paths at events. We'd always been polite towards each other, and as far as I knew, he had no personal beef with my brothers or the faction.
So why the hell was he buying goods stolen from us?
“I’m sorry, Sienna. Go ahead, tell me everything you found.”
She turned back to her laptop, but her muscles remained tense. She explained that Oskar had multiple illegal projects in Philly, all of them tied to one name I hadn’t expected to hear again—Giovanni Rinaldi. Without Rinaldi, the projects collapsed, and Oskar lost a shit ton of money.
“Fucking hell,” I muttered, leaning back as the pieces slammed together.
Of course.
