“Mr. Safin, sir…Jasper Romonoff is dead.”
Fuck.
Chapter 20 - Sienna
There was a soft knock on the door, but I didn’t turn. I lay curled under the covers, staring into the darkness as the hinges creaked and footsteps approached.
Avit had come home an hour ago and told me my father was dead. Murdered. His greed had finally gotten the best of him. He’d tried to double-cross Oskar, to squeeze more money out of him. As if crossing the Safins wasn't enough. The first mistake he made, I paid for with my freedom…his second? He paid with his life.
I’d been so close to freeing him, freeing us. If he had just waited a little longer.
But that wasn’t who my father was.
He wasn't a very patient man, not when it came to money. And not in the past weeks. He was determined to get out of the US to escape whatever other messes he had created. But men like my father…never escaped. At least not the way they wanted.
A choked sob clawed up my throat as guilt crashed over me. Maybe I should’ve asked Avit for money. Maybe I should’ve swallowed my pride and kept the cash Wexler brought me every day, instead of returning it to Avit.
Maybe he’d still be alive.
The last thing I said to my father was that he was dead to me.
And fate listened.
The words I’d thrown at him now echoed back like a curse I had put on myself. And now, those words are the only goodbye he’d ever get from me.
More tears burned their way down my cheeks. I didn’t bother wiping them away. New ones kept coming, anyway.
“I brought you dinner,” Avit murmured as the mattress dipped by my hip. One hand braced behind my back, the other pressed into the sheets in front of me, shielding me in.
“I’m not hungry,” I whispered.
I curled tighter, trying to keep myself from cracking wide open. I hated that I felt hollow for a man who had broken me in so many ways. Hated that his death could make me feel this empty.
“Angel, you’ve got to eat something,” Avit pleaded.
His fingertip traced a slow line down my cheek before his hand settled gently on my arm.
I didn’t respond.
I squeezed my eyes shut, wishing he would just leave, because his tenderness made the ache worse. But instead of leaving, he slipped beneath the covers and drew me against him, my back fitting to his chest as his arm wrapped protectively around me.
“Do you need anything?” he whispered into my hair.
I shook my head because if I opened my mouth, I’d break.
I’d been avoiding Avit, not only because of how sick I'd been feeling lately, but because I was waiting for the right moment to tell him about the baby. But every time I opened my mouth, the words lodged in my throat.
Because the more I thought about it, the clearer it became: we lived in two separate worlds. He was rich, influential…mafia. I was poor, invisible, and the daughter of aman who stole from him. Our paths never should’ve crossed. They only did because of my father’s sins.
What we had wasn’t real. It was convenient. Proximity. A momentary softness in the middle of a storm.
How could he ever love the grandchild of the man who betrayed him? Attach his name to the lineage of someone who had cost him hundreds of thousands of dollars?
And what would his family do when they found out who I was? Who my father was? News must be spreading already. It wouldn’t take long for them to connect the dots, if they hadn't already done so. The truth always crawled its way out of the dark. Always.
My stomach twisted, and I swallowed the bile that tried to escape my throat. I didn’t even know if I could keep this baby. Raising a child alone was terrifying. And if anyone found out who the father was? We’d be running for the rest of our lives.
Once upon a time, my reason for wanting to leave the country had been my father. Now, I realized it was the man lying next to me.
