Cara's POV
This had to be a dream. It had to.
But my heartbeat pounding frantically in my chest as I pinched myself told me that it wasn't.
Alexei stepped closer, his expression unreadable. "You don't have to accept it right now," he said, his tone surprisingly calm. "But the truth doesn't change. You're one of us, whether you like it or not."
I turned to him, anger flaring in my chest as I met his gaze. "Why are you doing this?" I demanded. "Why now? What do you want from me?"
Alexei's gaze darkened, but his voice remained gentle. "We don't want anything but for you to return to your rightful place among us. We want you to live close to us, under our protection."
"Under your control, you mean," My eyes narrowed at him. "I'm familiar with how things work in the mafia. Girls are nothing but breeding animals and pawns in your unfair games of war and power. What's to say that you won't sell me off to the highest bidder by tomorrow."
"Nonsense!" Ronan spat, "you are my precious daughter, moya malenkaya zvezdochka. You answer to no one, you will live for no one!"
His brown eyes blazed with a ferocity and protectiveness that couldn't be faked. My knees threatened to give out under the weight of the intensity in his eyes and I shook my head again.
"I can't…" I whispered, clutching the photograph tighter. "I can't do this."
Ronan's voice broke through the silence again, soft and heavy with regret. "You were only a baby," he stated, "We named you Katarina, after your mother and great-grandmother. Katya for short."
Katarina.
"I don't understand," I whispered, my voice cracking under the weight of my confusion. "How…how did I end up with Emilio?"
"Emilio," Ronan spat the name with venom, "he never liked our alliance with the Italian. He felt it was only a matter of time before we turned on them, we just needed a catalyst. After our alliance was formalized, he retaliated in the stupidest way imaginable."
I swallowed hard, my throat tightening as I braced myself for what came next.
"He stole you," Ronan continued, his voice breaking. "The Russians and Italians were allies at the time. We were just paying a visit and brought you along to properly introduce you to the don's family. Emilio broke into our hotel room under the guise of looking after it while we were gone. He took you from us as payback, as some sick means of settling his score. He went off the grid and managed to get away with it for almost eight years. By the time we found him, it was already too late. Manuel brought his body to me, thinking it would soothe the ache of losing my own fucking daughter."
My knees buckled, and I stumbled back, catching myself on the edge of the desk behind me. "No," I whispered, shaking my head. "That's not possible. He raised me. He…"
I frantically retreated into my memories. The man had raised me with love and care. I vaguely remembered him bouncing me on his knee, brushing my hair and cooking dinner together.
"He raised you with lies," Alexei interjected, his tone harsh but not unkind. "He stole you from your family and built a life on your pain. Don't make the mistake of romanticizing him."
Tears blurred my vision as I looked back at Ronan. "And my mother?" I asked, my voice trembling.
A shadow passed over his face, and he glanced down, his jaw tightening. "Katarina," he said softly, the name carrying a world of sorrow. "She was never the same after you were taken. The search for you took its toll on her, her heart and body too weak to fight without you. She passed away a few years later."
"That's a sweet way of saying that, father," Alexei suddenly hissed, spearing me with those green eyes of his, "mother took her own life after we learned you had died at the hands of the Columbians."
The room tilted, and I clutched the desk harder, certain that if I didn't, I would collapse.
"My mother…" I whispered, the tears spilling freely down my cheeks. "She died because of me?"
"No," Ronan said firmly, his voice steady despite the emotion thickening it. "She died because of Emilio. Because of his greed, his treachery. Not because of you, Katya."
I flinched at the name, unused to being called anything but Cara.
Ronan's hand twitched against the armrest of his chair, his expression pained. "I searched for you for years," he said, his voice breaking. "I begged, I threatened, I did everything I could to find you, but Emilio's disappearance kept us in the dark. And then I suffered a stroke."
I sucked in a sharp breath, the pieces falling into place. The man before me, so frail and yet so full of determination, had been broken by the loss of a child he never stopped searching for.
"I wanted to declare war," Ronan admitted, his voice trembling. "But I couldn't risk the fragile peace with the Italians. I couldn't risk more lives, more loss."
"That's where I came in," Alexei said, his voice hard. "I wasn't bound by the same constraints. When I took power, I made it my mission to find you, no matter the cost. The deaths. The relentless attacks on the Italian warehouses. The raids. It was all me."
I stared at him, opening my mouth to respond but nothing came out.
He nodded as if my speechlessness was an answer in itself, and something dark passed over his features, but there was no regret, no remorse in his eyes. "And I would do it all over again if it meant I'd find you."
His words hit me like a physical blow. I didn't know how to feel about that. Part of me wanted to recoil in horror at the bloodshed he was admitting to, at the lives lost, the chaos he'd caused. But another part of me-an irrational, broken part that had wanted to be loved my whole life and treated special by my family-couldn't ignore the fact that in the end, all of it had been done for me.
"I'm sorry for being so late," he said, his voice quieter now. "I didn't realize earlier. I started tailing you after Gina left for Rome. Intel told us of your relationship with Luca–"
"By intel, you mean Diego."
He nodded. "And Amanda. She gave us the plan of the house, showed us where the safe room was. Planted our spies. The siege on the estate wouldn't have been possible without her valuable information."
Huh. Like mother, like son afterall.
"You said you were tailing Gina…" My eyes narrowed as I hanged on to that piece of information. "You were going to kill Gina." I gasped, realization slamming into me like a two hundred pound sledgehammer. My eyes cut to him, indignation filling my chest, "she was innocent!"
"So were you! So was our mother!"
"How can you–"
His eyes bore into mine, searching for something-approval, forgiveness, maybe even just understanding. But I couldn't give it to him. I couldn't make sense of the conflicting emotions raging inside me.
Before I could gather my thoughts, a loud explosion shook the building. The walls trembled, and the ground beneath my feet seemed to buckle, making me stumble.
I heard shouting and commotion from outside the room. Alexei's expression darkened immediately, and he cursed under his breath.
"Lozis!" he barked, pushing me down and protecting me from the shrapnel that scattered around us. His eyes darted up as the door to the room burst open, and soldiers flooded in.
"You need to get to the safe room!" one of them shouted. "It's the Italians! They've come for us. They're attacking!"
Alexei chuckled beside me. " The bastard found us. If he wasn't such a pain in my ass, I'd respect the fucker."
My heart skipped at the mention of the Italians.
Luca was alive. He hadn't died during the attack.