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I lean forward, keeping my voice low. “Where is she?”
Enzo shakes his head. “I don’t know.”
“You expect me to believe that?”
“I swear on my life, I don’t know where she is right now.”
“That’s not worth much.”
He nods quickly. “I know. But I have proof. Transfers. Messages. Names of intermediaries. The man who arranged the shelter fire. The broker who hired the team for the first attempt. I can give you enough to expose her network.”
Roman studies him. “Why betray her now?”
Enzo looks at my brother, then at me. “Because she’s going to kill me.”
Silence follows.
Enzo’s voice turns rougher. “I was useful when distance mattered. Now that you’re close, I’m evidence. She’ll erase me before you reach her. I want protection.”
Roman almost smiles. There is no warmth in it. “You came to the wrong family for mercy.”
“I didn’t ask for mercy.” Enzo’s eyes meet mine. “I asked to be useful.”
I look down at the documents spread across the table, then toward the main house visible through the far window. Somewhere beyond the trees, Maggie is likely in the kitchen with Ivy, arguing with Mrs. Bennett over toast and pretending today can still be ordinary before the rehearsal at three.
She doesn’t know that the woman hunting my daughter is Clara’s mother. She doesn’t know that the foundation tied to Clara’s chosen name helped fund the fire that nearly killed her and Jules. She doesn’t know that Isabella already knows about our child growing inside her.
The knowledge takes on a life of its own inside the room.
Roman steps beside me, his voice low enough that only I hear it. “You’re responsible for more lives than you were prepared for.”
I keep my attention on Enzo. “No.”
Roman waits.
“They were already mine,” I say.
The admission enters the room quietly, but it changes something in me all the same. Maggie is mine. Ivy is mine. The child Maggie carries is mine. No one gets to take them from me.
Roman inclines his head once, accepting the answer.
I look back at Enzo. “You’ll give Roman everything. Every account, every name, every route, every man who touched this.”
Enzo nods quickly. “Yes.”
“And if anything happens to Maggie, Ivy, or the baby because you held one detail back, Isabella will become the least of your concerns.”
He believes me.
He should.
My phone vibrates before he can respond. Luka glances down at his device near the door at the same time, then looks at me.
“Maggie and Ivy left for the shelter,” he says. “Mrs. Bennett reports that Ivy packed Winston a rehearsal snack bag even though he wasn't invited.”
The words don’t belong in this room, not beside Moretti, Enzo, fire, bloodlines, and abduction. Yet they do, because this is my life now. Violence on one hand. Family in the other.
I rise from the table.
