Page 61 of My Merciless Don

He grinned at me. “Well done darling. You have definitely won the challenge. Benjamin is going to have to accept second place.”

I blinked a few more times still not sure that I wasn't hallucinating. I turned to Marco and saw that he was looking at James as well. If Marco could see him, he couldn't be a figment of my imagination, could he?

I stared back at him, a deep furrow in my brow. “Were you here the whole time?” I asked him in disbelief.

“No, but he was watching.”

It was Marco who replied, just increasing my shock. I looked at him and found that he was staring intently at my stepfather. “It was you, wasn't it? Who sent me those messages?”

James grinned, clapping in delight. “I do love a quick thinker. Thank you for rescuing my daughter by the way. It's good to see my faith in you was not misplaced.”

I was afraid that if I gawked any harder, my eyes would actually fall out of my face. “You set this whole thing up,” I said and it wasn't a question.

He shrugged, self-deprecatingly looking very proud of himself.

“Did you know?” I asked. “Did you know about my sister?”

He waved away my question. “That's not important now. You've avenged her, and now you are ready to take over my empire. The plane is waiting to take us to New York.” He said gesturing for us to leave.

I was more than a little flabbergasted by the gesture. That he would simply brush away the idea of knowing about my history, about who I really was. As if it was just another piece in his chess game. It was beyond unfathomable.

“How long have you known?” I asked, instead of doing as he said.

The bastard had the audacity to look surprised. But then, why shouldn't he have looked surprised? Hadn't I been obedient, unquestioning even, every day since I had come to live in his house? He had no reason to think I wouldn't do as he said. I always did as I was told, I did my best to emulate him, to be just like him.

My so-called stepfather. The only person who had ever wanted me, who had ever really invited me to join their family.

“I asked you a question.” I said in a steely voice.

He quirked an eyebrow, but still deigned to answer. “Yes,” he said with a very put upon air, “I knew your family. Your biological father owed me money. He couldn't pay,” he gave me a cold stare, “so he sold you to me.”

I whimpered in pain, almost doubling over. It hurt. It hurt as if someone had taken a knife and plunged it into my heart. All this while I thought maybe my mother was some junkie on the street who had had no choice but to give me away. And then I learned that someone had stolen me from her. I had been ready to track down the hospital staff, or whoever it was that made a business of stealing babies from hospitals.

To know that I wasn't stolen, I was sold, it was almost too much to bear.

“Why?” I was practically yelling in anguish.

“Why what?” James asked, sounding sincerely puzzled.

“Why did you do all this? Why make me find it all out? Why now?”

I felt a hand on my back rubbing soothingly and leaned into it. It was an anchor in the storm of emotion that was weathering. I was so glad for that grounding presence. I didn't know what I would have done if I had had to face this alone.

“Why now? Because I'm ready to retire, and I needed this to be dealt with. This is how you proved yourself to me. And, as I said, you' did a stellar job, you're ready to take the mantle. I'm not one to praise people but I think that you just might surpass me. You have everything you need to take our business to the next level.”

I couldn't believe he was saying that when I was hunched over in pain, my chest so tight I could barely breathe.

I didn't know what he thought I had proved to him, but I had proved the exact opposite to myself.

As much as he had tried to mold me into a mini-James, I was unable to step over this moment with aplomb. It was unable to discard the person I had become in just a few weeks of knowing a fucking mafia boss and of finding my birth family.

These things were important to me. I wanted to keep them. The business of being a con artist consisted of leaving things behind. Forging and discarding relationships like they were made of paper mâché. Being ruthless about taking from people, and never, never giving - not of yourself, or your property, nothing. It was about making people trust you and then betraying that trust.

I don't want to do that anymore.

I had worked so hard to prove myself to this man and now I did not even want to see him.

“You left me at orphanages instead of raising me until I was 13. Why was that? Did you not want a kid around?”

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