Page 63 of Assassin's Mark
“Right.” The light tapof his finger against the leather steering wheel told me he was thinking. “Some women would willingly give up a child, but Geneva’s description didn’t paint Caroline as one of them.”
Also true. Even leaving had been based on the safety of her daughter.
Her daughter.I couldn’t sayme, not yet. I just couldn’t.
“What if—”
I held up a hand. Cutting Levi off. “Just…give me a minute, okay?”
I didn’t look to him for confirmation, but he fell silent, and that was all the answer I needed. I sat very still, the rain drumming on the hood and windows muffling the world outside, and let the pieces fall into place in my mind.
The man, Anthony Clark, had come here to discover what had happened to his sister, who might very well have been my mother. Caroline had been a young country girl onher first adventure away from a restrictive, possibly abusive home. Anthony was dead—and if this was all true, if Geneva was right, then my uncle, the only family I might’ve had left, was gone. And my mother had disappeared off the face of the earth.
My father had ordered Anthony killed. I knew that, understood it, but still couldn’t truly comprehend it. I tried to examine the fact logically,critically, but I couldn’t stop my breath from speeding up, my heart from racing until I worried that I might pass out. Because the mere thought led to one other conclusion—if Derrick had killed Anthony, if he had tried to kill Remi and Levi and even me…then he could very well have killed my mother too.
Why? The answer was simple: politics.
Powerful men had mistresses all the time. My fatherhad married for political and social gain. Like any other child who’d lost a parent, I’d wanted desperately to know about the mother who’d died when I was no more than a toddler, but from what little I could gather from servants and news stories over the years, Camilla and Derrick hadn’t seemed to have a particularly passionate relationship. She had been pregnant, though. I’d seen the pictures.
“If I’m not Camilla’s child, what happened to her baby?” Even if Derrick’s mistress did have a daughter, his wife’s child would be the rightful heir, the refined, logical choice to assist Derrick in the life he wanted. Why choose me instead? And where was my half sibling?
“These things can be faked,” Levi said thoughtfully.
“But why go to all the trouble?”
“I don’t know.” Levi reached for me,his firm palm meeting mine, steadying me. “I don’t know all the answers yet, but we can find them.”
Levi was good at finding the answers, but how long would that take?
I thought about the woman Geneva had described: young, hard-working, loving. A simple country girl would never have made a good politician’s wife. But would he justify getting rid of her simply because she was a better mistressfor a man like him than a wife? Would Caroline have threatened to come forward, reveal her identity—and possibly stop his career before it had time to truly take off—if he wouldn’t care for her and her daughter?
Would Derrick have killed her?
The thought sent grief slicing through me. Surprisingly, the emotion was stronger than any denial that tried to rise. I was actually beginning to believemy father was more than capable of murder. Maybe having a gun held to my face by a man Derrick had sent after me had something to do with that. He had taken everything else in my life—my freedom, my self-esteem, my happiness. Was it really that big of a leap to think he’d stolen my mother too?
Levi threaded his fingers through mine. “I think the most important question we can ask is, where isshe? What happened to her?”
I had a terrible feeling in my gut, one I couldn’t ignore. “We’re not going to find her, are we?”
Levi’s sigh sounded as if it came from the depths of his soul. “No.”
Just no. He didn’t try to sugarcoat it, didn’t try to hide the what-ifs. He just held on to me and gave me the truth. I squeezed my eyes shut against the sting of tears.
“Is there any way to proveit?” Prove that my father had killed my mother.
I opened my eyes, needing to see the truth in my lover’s face, one way or another. Levi’s mouth tightened, his gaze stormy as he glanced my way. “Without a body? Probably not.”
How many men knew Derrick had hired a hit man? How many could follow that trail, the same way we had, and uncover the secret origins of Derrick’s daughter?
There wasn’tanyone else, though, was there? Levi had been approached for the original contract on Anthony Clark, and when he’d refused it… Well, Axe and his team were dead.
“What about a confession?”
Two realizations hit me as I said the words, both so profound that, if I’d been standing, they might’ve knocked me off my feet. One—I really believed it. I’d gone past the denial, the sense of unreality. Itmade perfect sense that my father had killed to secure his political future. This whole thing had gone from a hypotheticalmaybeto certainty in my gut.
And two—Derrick’s motive for coming after Levi was suddenly very, very clear.
“Covering up.”
