Page 146 of Inevitable Endings
I flinch like he’s struck me.
‘‘You are Gambino blood, Isabella. Full blood. Your mother...’’
He hesitates, agony flashing across his face.
‘‘Your mother died giving birth to you. And your father... your father died tragically not long after.’’
I feel myself start to shake. Not from cold, from something deeper, something tearing apart inside me.
‘‘Antonio—’’ Aslanov’s voice trembles now, the first time I’ve heard it like that. ‘‘He gave you up to a friend of your biological mother. Someone he trusted. He didn’t want there to be an heir left. He wanted the bloodline hidden. Buried.’’
His hand reaches for mine but I yank away from him, the movement sharp, almost violent.
‘‘I am so sorry, my love,’’ he whispers.
But I can’t hear him anymore.
Not really.
It’s like the world is screaming inside my head.
‘‘So my mother...’’ I choke out, voice cracking, ‘‘the woman who raised me... she’s not my mother?’’
He doesn’t answer. He doesn’t have to. The silence is answer enough.
‘‘I’m an orphan?’’ My voice shatters, splintering out of me like glass breaking.
My fists clench so tight my nails dig into my palms. I feel thesting of it but it’s distant, not real enough to anchor me.
‘‘And I’m...’’ My throat seizes. ‘‘I’m criminal blood?’’ I hiss the words, venomous and wild. ‘‘I’m fromthem?’’
Aslanov moves toward me but I shove myself off the couch, stumbling back like he’s the one who poisoned me.
‘‘No,’’ I gasp, shaking my head violently. ‘‘No, no, no.’’
Tears I didn’t even realize were there are sliding down my face, hot and furious.
‘‘I’m not one of them,’’ I rasp. ‘‘I’m not, this can’t be true. This has to be a lie.’’
He rises slowly, hands outstretched, calm, like he’s trying to approach a wild animal.
‘‘You’reyou,’’ he says fiercely. ‘‘Nothing changes who you are.’’
But it’s too late, the words are already sinking their claws into me. Every cell of my body feels like it’s rejecting itself.
My blood feels wrong in my veins.
My skin feels foreign.
Everything I ever thought about who I was, ripped out from under me in a single breath.
“This is a lie,” I snap, the words tearing out of me. “He lied to you. He said it to make you believe it. To mess with you. You don’t know that it’s true.”
Aslanov’s face tightens, something flickering through his eyes, grief, guilt, but he doesn’t back down.
“I wanted to believe that too,” he says, voice rough. “I prayed it was a lie. I needed it to be a lie, Isabella.”
He takes a slow, careful step toward me.
