Page 5 of Corruption

“Adrian offered us up his daughter for me to marry.”

“His daughter? Lady Fantoni? Isn’t she ten or something like that?”

“Eleven.”

“Addy went for that?”

“No. She didn’t. It’s not Lady that he’s offering to us. Apparently, he has a long, lost secret daughter of his own.”

“How many long lost fucking daughters does that family have?”

First Addy being the long lost daughter of her father, and now her husband has one? Not that secret lost children are particularly rare in our line of business. But for two to be brought to the forefront in one family in such a short period of time is odd.

“Doesn’t matter. He’s willing to offer her to me and unite our families through marriage and, hopefully, a son from the union to further seal the deal.”

Regardless of my feelings about all this, it’s good this is going to be settled without bloodshed. But it’s my job to advise my brother of when I sense deception, and there’s clearly some deception going on here.

“I find it convenient that Adrian suddenly found a daughter lying around that he was willing to give up when he could have done that three years ago.”

“Doesn’t really matter if she’s actually his or not,”Vaughn says, understanding what I’m getting at.“He’s claiming her, and he’s giving her to me. That’s what counts. Besides, the picture they sent me of her makes me inclined to believe him. She has his eyes.”

“Send it over,” I request. Not only to see her but to do some research and see what I can come up with. Though, if she’s really not Adrian’s daughter and he is just passing off some random girl to shut my brother and his insistent accusations up, the Fantonis have likely already destroyed or deeply buried anything that could unveil the ruse.

“Any other concerns?”

One. But not like it’s going to matter if I voice it. My little brother has his mind set to this.

I decide to voice it anyway.

“I don’t like this, Vaughn. You know Addy didn’t do what you’ve been accusing her of.”

“Well. Good thing I’m thepakhan.”

Before I can spite him by saying he got that position because it was taken from me, he ends the call.

“So Adrian Fantoni has another daughter?” Nadia asks.

“So he claims,” I mutter as I open the message from my brother and click the photo he sent to full screen.

He’s right. Adrian’s supposed daughter does have his eyes, and that’s where the similarities between them end with her long, big curly-kinky ginger hair pulled back out her face by a metal barrette with jewels in it, warm honey-beige skin, and freckles decorating her nose and cheeks. She’s grinning at the camera. She’s also young. Looking like the typical freshman college-aged girl with her cutout jeans and off-shoulder sweater. But of course she was going to be young. Adrian’s just barely a few years older than me. Not even forty.

“Well,” Nadia says, taking the phone from me. “Isn’t she a pretty girl?”

“Certainly a sight for sore eyes,” I comment. “How about you do me a favor and see what you can find about her? It can been one of your side projects.”

“Trying to uncover what the Fantonis have hastily buried about this girl? That’s going to be fun.”

“Be discreet, Nadezhda,” I warn. Then I take my phone from her and toss it away. “But that’s for later. Right now, back on your hands and knees.”

3

Nadia

In another life, I’d like to think that I would have become a famed concert violinist by now. Traveling the world with a symphony orchestra and gliding my bow across the strings for an audience of thousands during a solo. Enjoying the high of the awe and applause for my talent.

I experienced it once and one time only.

Before my family was declared traitors. Before Alik married me to save me. Before I was forced to all but abandon my talent to be the good Russian mafia wife of the former heir to the highest seat in the brotherhood.

---