Chapter 74 Cut All Ties

Chapter 74 Cut All Ties
Eva's POV

The moment those words left my mouth, my father's eyes flashed with something sharp and dangerous, a flicker of genuine rage cutting through the calm mask he wore so effortlessly.

He clenched his fists and his eyes seemed to turn slightly red as he stared at me.

"I loved your mother very much," he said, his voice filled with barely controlled anger. "I would never do anything to hurt her! So no matter what you think of me, don't you dare question that."

I didn't believe him and I had a strong feeling of certainty that he had something to do with her death.

"Then what happened to her?" I asked, my voice cold without any hint of fear. "Why did she die after giving birth to me? If you loved her so much, explain that to me clearly. Because right now, none of this is adding up in my head."

He let out a slow breath, some of the anger draining from his expression, replaced by something heavier that seemed to weigh him down.

"Because she was sabotaging my missions, we had a huge fight. So I moved out and went to live with a close friend of mine, someone who also worked within the organization. But I kept sending her money every single month for her upkeep. I never abandoned her financially, no matter how bad things got between us. I made sure she never went without anything she needed."

My patience was already wearing thin and I didn't care about the money he sent. I only care about the truth.

"Get straight to the point," I said sharply. "I don't have all day to sit here listening to your attempts to whitewash yourself…Just tell me what happened to her."

His eyes flashed again, this time with pure fury.

"It's this same stubbornness that killed your mother!" he snapped, his voice rising suddenly, and echoing off the walls of the room. "Everything I have ever done was to protect you, and you always find some way to ruin it yourself with this same impatience! You don't even give me the chance to explain properly before demanding I skip to the end!"

I folded my arms and stared back at him, refusing to react as his anger meant nothing to me right now. I let the silence stretch between us, waiting and watching as he struggled to regain his composure.

Eventually, his anger seemed to deflate, and his shoulders sagged slightly.

"Your mother went to the organization to look for me and I was ordered to kill her the moment she showed up there. But I begged them to spare her, as she was heavily pregnant at the time. I pleaded with everything I had, and offered anything they wanted in exchange for her life. I even offered my own life in place of hers, but they refused."

He paused, running a hand roughly through his hair, like the memory itself was physically painful to hold onto, his fingers trembled slightly as he did it, and his eyes seemed to be fixed somewhere far away from this room.

"On the day she went into labor," he continued, "I was out of town on a mission. A friend of mine reached out and warned me that the organization's leader had decided to kill both her and the child anyway, despite everything I had done to convince them otherwise. He said the leader saw her as a loose end that needed to be dealt with permanently."

My chest tightened, dread pooling low in my stomach.

"I rushed back as fast as I could," he said. "But by the time I reached the hospital, I was already too late. I drove back to town like a mad man and every second I spent traveling back felt like it lasted an hour, knowing what was likely already happening while I was still miles away."

He stopped, his jaw clenching tightly, and his eyes glazed over like he was watching it happen all over again in his mind.

"They killed her in the labor room," he said, his voice barely above a whisper now. "Your mother was pregnant with twins. She had already delivered you, and she was still trying to deliver your sibling when the assassin broke into the room. He shot her in the head and the stomach and she died instantly. Your twin also died with her, and never even got to take her first breath."

The room went completely silent and I sat frozen on the couch, as I was trying to process everything he had just told me.

A sibling I never knew existed…A twin who never got the chance to take a single breath. And a mother murdered while trying to bring both of us into the world. All of it happening while I lay somewhere else entirely, completely unaware of the chaos surrounding my own birth, of how close I had come to never existing at all.

"You survived because a nurse had already taken you to the next room to clean you up before the assassin arrived. By the time I got there, I took you straight from her arms and ran out of that hospital as fast as I could. I didn't even stay to bury your mother properly, as I couldn't risk staying long enough for them to come back and finish what they started." he continued, his eyes finally lifting to meet mine, filled with something that looked like grief.

"You just left her there?," I asked with a choked voice, something in my chest twisting painfully at the thought of her lying there alone.

"I had a newborn in my arms and no time to grieve properly," he said, his voice hardening slightly. "I made the choice that kept you alive, and I've had to live with the memory of abandoning her for the rest of my life."

I sat there, absorbing every word he said, my mind struggling to piece together a history I had never known existed, one that had shaped every single day of my life.

"I took you to the Ricci family after that," he said. "Michael was already the head of the family by then, so I made a deal with him. I would send enough money every month to cover your upkeep, and in exchange, he would raise you as his own, keeping your true identity hidden from anyone who might come looking. It seemed like the safest option at the time."

I stared at him, anger bubbling up inside me despite everything he had just revealed.

"Giving me to the Ricci family was a terrible decision," I said sharply. Even though I know he meant well and might not have had any other options.

"Do you have any idea what my life was like in that house? The maltreatment I suffered under their roof? Michael and his wife made every single day of my childhood miserable, and their son wasn't much better once he was old enough to join in. I grew up believing nobody wanted me, that I was some burden they were forced to tolerate."

"I know," he said simply, without a hint of remorse in his tone.

"You know..," I repeated bitterly. "That's all you have to say? You know? After everything I went through, that's the extent of your response?"

I frowned at how casually he said it, like we were discussing something as ordinary as the weather instead of years of abuse I had endured because of his decision.

"That's exactly why there is no longer a single living member of the Ricci family," he continued, his voice completely flat, as though the fire that consumed an entire household overnight was nothing more than a footnote in his story.

I stared at him, something cold settling into my chest.

He had burned an entire family to the ground and wiped them off the face of the earth, and he spoke about it with the same detachment someone might use to describe taking out the trash after dinner.

"I will deal with everyone who has ever caused you harm," he said, leaning forward slightly, his gaze intense as it locked onto mine.

"Every single person that has ever hurt you will pay dearly.. I promise you that. Nobody who has ever hurt you will walk away unpunished, no matter how long it takes me. But there is one thing I need from you in return."

I looked at him without saying a word, waiting silently for whatever demand was coming next, every instinct in me screaming that whatever he was about to ask would come with a price I wasn't prepared to pay.

Of course I had no plans of doing anything for him, I am just curious to know what he wanted in return.

He studied my face for a long moment before speaking again, his expression turning serious in a way that made my stomach twist with unease as his grieving and nostalgic expression was replaced with a twisted smile.

"Cut all ties with Ethan Valente.”