Page 25 of Shattered Empire (Shattered World)

“So, is this why you asked me here?” He gave the file a slight shake. “To air out all of Christian and Elias’s dirty laundry to me?”

“Part of the reason,” I admitted with a shrug. “You deserved to know what happened to your daughters. You’ll find one marked Kenzi as well.”

“Kendra told me she is doing well at college.” He seemed puzzled that I would have anything to hand over when it came to the daughter he believed was on the other side of the pond living a normal college student life.

“Kenzi never made it to college.”

Dante swore.

“Kendra either has her head buried in the sand or was complicit in her own daughter’s sale.”

“Sale?”

“Elias sold her to the Chameleon Agency.”

Dante’s face paled beneath his Italian coloring. It was apparent he knew who they were or had at least heard the name.

“You’re wrong,” he jeered. “He would never do that. Elias knew their reputation. Why would he...?”

“Get rid of the one daughter who was of no use to him?” I mocked. “Did you bother to even contemplate whether your brother suspected an affair? That maybe he knew that Kenzi and Libby weren’t his? He kept Libby because she was useful. Kenzi wasn’t, and Elias only kept around things that were useful.”

“So why did he keep you around, then?”

Well, that stung like a bitch. Rage thundered through me at his callousness. I almost walked away. Almost.

A new wave of anger swept over me as I thought back to all the times he knew about my predicament and never once thought to help.

Nope. This useless bitch was gone. Sayonara, fucker.

“Wait,” Dante called out as I turned on my heel to begin walking back toward the shore. “I’m sorry. That was uncalled for.”

Turning, I raised a brow at him, incredulity written on my face easier to read than a neon stripper sign.

“You think?”

“I’m trying to wrap my head around all of this, Ava,” he fumed. Dante ran his hand angrily through his hair, stressing the roots, his jaw clenched. “You’re telling me my own nephew not only murdered his sister but also committed patricide, and my brother sold off one of my daughters. That’s a lot for anyone to take in.”

My lips curled into a snarl, gaze hardening as I thought back to all the information I had been slammed with in the last few months. “Oh?” I bared my teeth at him and let the bottled-up rage unleash itself. “You mean like finding out the man who had called himself my father since I was eleven, who beat me and tortured me, was in fact, not my father but the one who abducted, sold, and then bought my mother? That he raped her and used her. The man who sold me so that his precious son could live?”

Dante stood stunned before me, unable to form any words, his lips pressed into a thin line.

“How about how the man I thought was my brother would brush up against me time after time when I was growing up? How he threatened to rape me? You want to know what he did to me when he told you he had ‘rescued’ me?”

That fucking word got air quotes and everything.

“He would wake me up with a stun gun. Or a cattle prod. Sometimes with a whip. Hell, one day I woke up to him trying to drown me.” My voice had risen, silent tears tracking down my cheeks. The look of horror on his face didn’t help. He honestly had no clue what Christian had done to me. “After the funeral, he told Eduardo to rape me so I would learn my place. You want to know what I did?” I didn’t wait for him to answer. “I smashed his skull in with a rock. I killed him, Dante. Ended him. And it wasn’t enough. Because every person involved is going to bleed.”

Might have left out that one of those people was going to be Kenzi.

I doubted Dante would take well to me wanting to kill his only remaining daughter.

“Is your mind scrambled yet, Dante?” I mocked. “Heard enough? Because I’ve got more where that came from.”

Dozens of possible things he might do were running through my head in that moment. Scoffing and brushing me off were among them. Attempting to kill me was another. Maybe he would simply nod his head in acceptance and take it all in stride.

Stumbling into his chest as his arms wrapped tightly around me, the soft scent of leather and smoke ensconcing me was not what I expected. One hand cradled the back of my head while another rubbed soothingly down my back.

“I should have done more,” he croaked. Guilt and regret were choking him. Something wet hit the top of my head, and I belatedly realized he was crying. Dante Romano, head of the Italian Mafia, was crying. “I’m sorry. I am so, so sorry,piccolina.”

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