Page 91 of Heart of a Villain

“If that’s the case, who is our mother? My mother…or, I guess,” Ayesha crooked her fingers, “‘mother,’ or Sayeda’s? This Mora woman?”

Julien looked at Gage.

Gage’s shoulders dropped, and then he discreetly nodded.

“Mora,” Julien said. “Because of her military service, I was able to pull some strings and send in a DNA sample for reference. Mora’s the one who gave birth to the two of you.”

Ayesha squeezed her forehead, mirroring Sayeda. “So, who’s the woman who raised me?”

“As far as I can tell, she and Aron Price did have a relationship.”

“But, there are baby pictures…” Ayesha staggered to her feet. “There are pictures of her holding me as a baby. If this Mora woman’s my mother, how did my mother, or my father’s girlfriend or whatever, get me so early?”

Sayeda stood. “Did he cheat on Mora while she was pregnant? So, wait…did he actually kidnap me? Kidnap us?”

As if operating with the same voice box, they pivoted and said, “I need a minute,” before leaving the VIP area in separate directions.

Joel started after Ayesha.

Adrían did the same for Sayeda.

“Wait,” Mo called. “Let me and Ari go.”

Without waiting for a response from him or Joel, Mo went after Sayeda while Ari followed Ayesha, leaving the rest of them behind, having caught the earlier confusion like a stomach bug.

“Half-sisters, I think they would have been able to handle,” Larke said. “Full sisters means a good portion of their lives, especially Eesh’s, just got upended. I mean, based on what we know already?—”

“Foul play is involved,” Adrían finished.

“My older sister, Raven, was killed when I was a little girl,” she went on. “There was a predator in my grandmother’s neighborhood. It devastates me to this day. But if Raven walked in this room right now, regardless of how much I miss her, I would need a moment to sort everything out.”

He offered her a gentle smile, but she didn’t offer one in return. However, they were speaking. Twice, in one day, she’d responded to him directly.

Dez tipped his head to the side. “Did anybody hear that?”

Dez and Gage, he’d learned, had their own form of intuition. They trusted Gage’s gut, as it was rarely wrong, and Dez picked up on things quicker than anyone else, like an additional sense.

Seconds later, the sound of bullets leaving the chamber of a high-powered, automatic weapon resonated, intermingled with screams.

“It’s an AR-15,” Dez said, reaching into his blazer. “More than one assailant. Larke? Behind me, baby.”

Joel and Julien headed in the same direction Ari and Ayesha left.

Adrían and Giorgio headed for Mo and Sayeda.

CHAPTER

TWENTY-FOUR

“Hey,” Mo called.

Sayeda looked away from the second-floor balcony and offered Mo a smile with virtually no strength anywhere inside it to be found. She didn’t know what she was looking for, and it wasn’t until she arrived at the isolated spot, alone, that she realized she would have preferred to do her “thinking” with Ayesha close by.

The news wasn’t easy for her, and she knew it had to have hit harder for Ayesha. At least she knew the cold, distant woman who’d made only a few appearances in her life before adulthood was her mother. What she’d learned of the woman who raised Ayesha was that she’d been the opposite—warm, kind, alive.

Her mother’s coldness was no excuse for Aron Price to cheat. It was even more fucked up if he had cheated while she was pregnant. But, if Aron Price was anything like Ayesha, or anything like the woman she used to be, he would never have been able to find warmth in a tundra.

“Talk to me,” Mo said, standing next to her. “What’s going through your head?”

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