“The surgery,” she says quietly, pausing at the door. “If you’re a match, it’s dangerous, isn’t it? For you?”
I meet her eyes. This woman who bandaged my scrapes and snuck me cookies and looked at me with fear and suspicion ever since I tied her daughter up with a belt.
“I’ve survived worse.”
She nods, seeming conflicted.
“Take care of them,” she says. “Take care of yourself too. I’ll be back in the morning for whatever you and Mina need.”
Then she’s gone, and I’m alone with Mina and Leon.
I should wake her. She needs to know the results and that her son—ourson—has a chance now. She’s been carrying this terror alone for days, and I have the power to ease it.
But she looks so peaceful.
The dark circles under her eyes are still there, purple against her pale skin. Her hands are curled loosely in her lap, no longer trembling. Her breath comes slow and even, her chest rising and falling in a rhythm that’s almost hypnotic.
I sink into the chair Mrs. Santoro vacated and watch her sleep.
Pathetic,my father’s voice hisses.She lied to you for years. She kept your son from you. She needs to be punished, not rewarded.
I try to ignore him, but my heart has been racing ever since Leon opened his eyes to reveal the Montoni amber, and I’m having trouble blocking him out.
The housekeeper’s daughter. You could have had anyone. Ariana Barone would have given you legitimate heirs, a strategic alliance, a wife who knew her place. Instead, you’re cutting out your organs for an ungrateful, deceitful woman.
Mina’s still mine. She’s always been mine, and now I have proof. A son with my eyes, sleeping beside me.
I look at Leon, a small body in the big bed, surrounded by stuffed animals my men brought. The T-rex is tucked against his side, one of his small hands clutching its tail even in sleep.
He looks like me.
I don’t know why I didn’t see it before. The shape of his face, his nose, the way his dark curls fall across his forehead. I was so focused on his mother that I missed every telltale sign.
She must have put contacts on his eyes. Colored contacts, to hide the amber. The thought should make me angry, but mostly I just feel…sad.
Mina built an entire life around the lie that Leon’s father was someone else, anyone else, as long as it wasn’t me.
Please don’t punish Leon because of me.
She begged me not to punish her child. My own child. Is that who she thinks I am?
That’s who I raised you to be.My father’s voice rattles in my head, demanding to be listened to.That’s exactly who you should be. A real man would have walked away without a second glance, or taken the boy from his scheming, lying mother and raised him properly. Punished her. Crushed her for what she dared to do to Don Cristiano Montoni.
I close my eyes. Both my hands are curled into fists.
A Montoni don doesn’t weaken himself,my father sneers.Your enemies will see this as an opportunity. They’ll come for you while you’re recovering, while you’re vulnerable, while you’re too weak to fight back.
Soon I’ll be unconscious on an operating table while surgeons cut into me and remove part of my liver. I’ll be recovering for weeks. Vulnerable in ways I haven’t been since I was a boy cowering under my father’s fists.
And Silas Cross is expecting my help. We have a tentative alliance built on my promise to help them hold the line.
When I don’t show up, Silas will think I betrayed them. The consequences are going to be dire, for them and for me.
I should care about my reputation, my alliances, the careful balance of power in Malus that keeps my enemies at bay.
I choose this. I choose my son’s life.
And Mina.
