Chapter 36 The Grandma's Truth
Alessia stood frozen, staring at the photograph.
Her grandmother. Madame Volkov. Together. Smiling like old friends.
“Alessia,” Liam’s voice cut through the shock, tight with worry. “Talk to me. What’s going on?”
She couldn’t tell him. Not yet. Not when her mind was still spinning, when everything she thought she knew was collapsing.
“It’s my grandmother,” she said carefully, voice hollow. “I thought she was… safe. Hidden. But if the Council has contact with her—”
“Then she’s not as protected as you thought,” Liam finished grimly. He studied her face. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
“Maybe I have.” Alessia’s hands shook as she tucked the photograph back into the envelope. “I need to think. Process this.”
“Do you want me to—”
“No.” Her voice softened despite herself. “I just need time. Alone. To figure out what this means.”
Liam looked like he wanted to argue but nodded. “Okay. But Alessia? Whatever this is, whatever you’re dealing with—you don’t have to face it alone. I’m here.”
Her chest tightened with guilt. Because she was facing it alone. Because she had been lying to him. Because every revelation made her realize how tangled, how dangerous her web of secrets had become.
“I know,” she said quietly. “Thank you.”
The moment Liam left for his study, Alessia locked herself in her bedroom.
She pulled out her laptop, hands trembling, fingers hovering over the keyboard as she opened encrypted FBI databases she still had access to. She had to know. Had to understand what the photograph meant.
If the Council knew her grandmother, if they had contact with her, then everything the FBI had told her was a lie.
Your grandmother is in witness protection. She’s safe. She thinks you’re dead.
That’s what Thorne had said. What he’d used to keep her compliant.
But if the Council could just hand her a photo…
Alessia started digging.
Birth certificates. Immigration records. Witness protection files.
Her grandmother’s name: Elena Konstantinova. Born in Moscow, 1952. Immigrated to the United States in 1975.
The witness protection file showed entry in 2017—eight years ago. Standard protocol. New identity. No contact with family.
But then she found something else.
Travel records. International flights.
Elena Konstantinova had left the country in 2016. Switzerland. Returned in 2019.
While supposedly in witness protection.
“That’s impossible,” Alessia whispered.
Witness protection meant complete invisibility. No travel. No records. No trace.
Unless… she had never been in the program at all.
Her fingers flew across the keyboard, digging deeper.
Financial records. Property ownership.
Then—a corporate filing from 1989.
Themis Holdings.
Board of Directors: Elena Konstantinova. Katarina Volkov. Three other names.
Alessia’s blood ran cold.
Themis. The same name as the “collective” the FBI had fed her. But this was real. Registered. Decades old.
She clicked through more documents, horror growing with each revelation.
Themis Holdings owned properties across three continents. Controlled shell companies. Connected to law enforcement, intelligence agencies, organized crime families.
It wasn’t a vigilante collective.
It was the Council. Or a major part of it.
And her grandmother had helped create it.
“Oh God,” Alessia breathed.
Her grandmother wasn’t a victim. Not in hiding. Not helpless.
She was—had been—a founding member of the organization that controlled everything.
Alessia kept searching, her mind racing.
Elena had left the Council in 2000. Right after Alessia’s mother married Salvatore Scarpetti. Disappeared from operational records. Moved to a small house upstate.
Why?
Alessia found a police report from 2007. An attempted break-in at Elena’s home. No arrests. Nothing stolen.
Two months before her mother’s death.
The pieces clicked together, horrifyingly clear.
Her mother hadn’t just wanted to leave Salvatore because of abuse.
She had wanted to expose the Council. To expose the web her own mother and grandmother were connected to. The families, the power, the manipulation.
And she’d been silenced.
Not Salvatore alone. Salvatore, with permission. Maybe even orders.
Then the narrative had been controlled. Elena disappeared. Everyone told they were victims.
Except they weren’t.
Alessia’s phone rang.
Thorne.
Her heart hammered. She stared at the screen, then at the locked door.
“I can’t talk right now,” she said, voice low.
“I see you poking into Council databases,” Thorne said, ice in his voice. “Problem, Agent Scarpetti.”
“You lied to me,” she said quietly, fury and betrayal twisting in her chest. “About my grandmother. About everything.”
“I protected you from information that would compromise your objectivity.”
“My objectivity?” She almost laughed. “You used her as leverage. Made me think she was in danger—”
“She is in danger. Just not from your father,” Thorne said, tone dropping. “The Council isn’t the target, Scarpetti. They’re asset protection. They maintain balance. Your mission is your father. Not the Council. Not your grandmother.”
“Then why lie about witness protection?”
“Because if you knew the truth—if you knew what your grandmother is, what your mother tried to do—you’d lose focus.” His voice hardened. “Stand down. Stop digging. The Council is watching. They don’t tolerate threats.”
“Let me talk to her. My grandmother.”
Silence.
“She doesn’t want to talk to you.”
The words hit her like a knife.
“What?”
“Your grandmother is alive. She’s safe. And she’s very disappointed in you,” Thorne said coldly. “She didn’t sacrifice everything—didn’t walk away from power, didn’t let her daughter die—so you could marry into the O’Sullivans and compromise the entire operation.”
“You’re lying.”
“The photo was her message,” Thorne said. “A reminder of who you are. Where you come from. And who you’re betraying by choosing Liam O’Sullivan over the mission.”
Alessia’s hand tightened on the phone. “I want proof. Her voice.”
“You’ll hear from her when she’s ready. Until then, forty-eight hours to deliver actionable intelligence on both families, or I’m pulling you out. Permanently.”
“And Alessia? Your grandmother will know you failed. Just like your mother did.”
The line went dead.
Alessia sat there, phone in her shaking hand, everything crumbling.
Everyone had lied to her. The FBI. The Council. Her grandmother.
Even her understanding of her mother’s death had been incomplete.
A knock at her door made her jump.
“Alessia?” Liam’s voice, concerned. “You okay in there?”
She closed her laptop quickly, wiped her eyes. “I’m fine. Just needed time.”
“It’s been two hours.”
Had it? She had lost track of time entirely.
“I’m okay. I’ll be out soon.”
A pause. “Alright. I’m here if you need me.”
His footsteps retreated.
Alessia looked down at the photograph again. Her grandmother. Young. Powerful. Standing beside Madame Volkov like they ruled the world.
Because they had.
And somehow, Alessia had become a pawn in a game that had been playing for decades.
A game her mother died trying to expose.
A game her grandmother had helped create.
And now the Council—and the FBI—were watching, waiting to see what she would do next.
Forty-eight hours.
To deliver intelligence that could destroy Liam and both families.
Or to lose everything—her mission, her grandmother, her purpose.
One thought burned through the fear and confusion.
The FBI had lied.
And Liam—complicated, dangerous, flawed Liam—was the only person who had been honest with her about anything.
A monster trying to survive.
Just like her.
Alessia stood, decision crystallizing.
She was going to find her grandmother herself. Get answers herself.
And then, she would decide whose side she was really on.
But first… she had to figure out how to do it without Liam discovering she was FBI.
Because if he found out now, after everything—after the blood oath, after Cormac…
He’d never forgive her.
And she wasn’t ready to lose him yet.
Even if keeping him meant drowning in lies a little longer.