Page 147 of Inevitable Endings
“But Ada... Dominik... we just checked everything and it adds up. We didn’t just take his word for it. We did the research. Records, names, dates, all of it.”
I shake my head, backing away from him until my shoulders hit the wall.
“No, my whole life is a living lie,” I whisper, but it’s weak.Hollow.
“There was a girl who went missing,” Aslanov says steadily. “Born to a woman connected to the Gambino family by blood. Her husband, Salvatore, was killed not long after. The mother died giving birth. The child—you—was hidden away. There was no name, but the story is accurate.”
I can barely breathe. My lungs refuse to pull in air properly.
“It all matches,” he says, softer now, like he’s trying to offer me something solid to cling to. “Your birthday. The city. The hospital record, it was sealed, Isabella. Someone with power made it disappear. You weren’t adopted through any normal process. You just... appeared in the system one day.”
I clutch at my chest, my heart thundering, breaking apart inside me.
“You were placed with a friend of your biological mother’s. Someone who could pretend you were theirs. Hide you. Keep you away from the people who would have used you, hunted you.”
He stops a foot away from me now, his voice dropping to almost a whisper.
“You were never supposed to know. You were never supposed to find out.”
I stare at him, every part of me screaming inside.
‘‘The girl who went missing,’’ he says, final, brutal, ‘‘was you.’’
He steps closer, reaching out like he’s afraid I’ll shatter.
‘‘The baby... was you, Isabella.’’
My throat burns as I force the words out.
‘‘You told them before me?’’ I whisper, broken. ‘‘They know?’’
I can barely see him through the blur of tears clouding my vision.
‘‘Who else knows?’’ My voice cracks, sharp and desperate.
Aslanov answers fast, almost stumbling over himself.
‘‘No one,’’ he says fiercely.
But it’s not enough. It’s not nearly enough to stop the terror twisting inside me.
‘‘And the Gambinos...’’ I choke, wiping at my face with shaking hands. ‘‘The Gambinos and the Bratva, aren’t they... life-long fucking rivals?!’’
He hesitates for half a second too long, and the answer is written all over his face even before he speaks.
‘‘Yes,’’ he says quietly. ‘‘They are.’’
The room spins around me, the walls squeezing in. I press my palms against them, against anything solid, anything real, trying to keep myself from falling apart.
‘‘So I’m not just criminal blood,’’ I rasp, the words dripping like acid from my tongue. ‘‘I’menemy blood.’’
I’m falling. Fast and hard and hopeless. The memories of the voices while I was in the basement all come back to me. It was him; Lorenzo.
But then Aslanov moves, all the softness gone in a breath, and suddenly his hands are on me, commanding, gripping my shoulders, grounding me like iron stakes driven into the earth.
‘‘Look at me,’’ he orders, voice low, sharp, leaving no room for argument. His palms are firm, unyielding, dragging my gaze back to him when I try to tear away.
‘‘You are mine.You hear me? I don’t give a fuck about blood. About rivals. About anything. You are mine,and no one will touch you.’’
