Page 117 of Roberto

I waited in silence.

It was nearly 30 seconds before she whispered, “My father was a triad gangster.”

“…ah.”

Now it all made sense.

Even if I didn’t know the details, I could imagine why she’d reacted the way she did.

“I didn’t know until I was a teenager,” she continued.

“He hid it that well?” I asked gently.

“He ran the group he was part of, so he was more like a high-level businessman. He wore a suit all the time, and he kept his work separate from our family. I didn’t know anything about what he did until I was kidnapped.”

Kidnapped.

I looked down at her in shock. “Did they – ”

“No,” she whispered. “They didn’t hurt me. They were trying to use me as leverage, to make him give up part of his territory. They knew if they hurt me, he wouldn’t rest until they were all dead.

“But at the time, I didn’t understand why I’d been kidnapped. Not until a week later, when my father and his men came into the warehouse where I was being held captive and slaughtered everyone.”

My heart ached for her. My own life had been filled with violence; from the time I was a child, my father’s enemies had tried to kill my family. But they had never once laid a finger on me or my brothers.

I could only imagine how terrifying it must have been to be a teenage girl and be taken hostage without knowing about her father – and then watch him kill her kidnappers. That kind of trauma would leave lifelong scars.

“That was bad enough, but things got even worse when I became an adult,” Mei-ling said. “He and my mother kept pressuring me to get married. He tried to arrange matches for me – sons of other high-ranking gangsters – and I had to keep putting him off.

“Then, when I got into the BDSM community, my father found out somehow. The triads have connections to every illegal activity in Hong Kong, so it was probably just a matter of time.

“He sent thugs to my job – in front of all my co-workers – and they forced me to come with them. When we got to my parents’ house, my father screamed at me for ten minutes straight. He told me I was a degenerate and that I had dishonored our family. That probably doesn’t sound so terrible to you, but in Asian cultures, dishonoring your family is one of the absolute worst things you can do.”

“I understand better than you might think,” I murmured.

I was telling the truth. Other than my obsession with Mei-ling, the one thought that had gnawed at me the past week was that I was betraying my family. I was ignoring them so I could follow my own selfish desires.

I cringed to think what their reaction would be if they found out what I was doing.

“My father said he was ashamed of me,” she whispered. “He said he was ashamed I was his daughter.”

I winced and held her tight. My father wouldneverhave said that to me or my brothers – not even in his angriest, darkest moments.

“But I wasn’t a scared little girl anymore,” she said. “I fought back. I told him he was a bully and a thug and a murderer. I told himhehad dishonored our family, and thatIwas ashamed to behisdaughter. That was when he slapped me.”

Rage flared up inside me.

I wanted to kill him for laying a finger on the woman I loved.

“He told me I was officially cut off from the family and to never come home again. That I was no longer his daughter. I haven’t talked to him, my mother, or my brothers ever since. That was four years ago.”

No wonder she hated anyone involved in organized crime.

But there was still something I didn’t understand.

“What about the gun?” I asked quietly.

“What about it?”

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