Page 140 of Mafie Kings

She closes her eyes again and lets out a deep breath. Tears stream down the sides of her face. “If I tell you, then can you be the one to kill me? It’s best that way. You only ever cared about me because they did.”

I roll my eyes at her; this girl has no idea what she’s done to us. She doesn’t know I’m the one who’s hunted down every person who tried to bring her harm here and had them killed. She doesn’t know Lev has never once opened up to a single person until she came into our lives. She doesn’t know that, until a month before we came here, Damien was in an alcoholic recovery program. She doesn’t know that each of us would die for her, especially after eleven hours of not knowing if we would have to live in a world without her in it.

She doesn’t know.

Carefully, I put my arms under her and lift her into my lap. Something about her almost dying is making me crazy. I need to touch her, hold her.

She winces again so I press the button for more pain medicine once we’re settled.

“Can I show you something?” I ask her, texting the group chat we now have.

She shrugs her shoulders, not opening her eyes. When the pictures I requested come through, I adjust the phone so she can see them.

“We set this up to try and figure everything out,” I say, showing her the room next door that holds whiteboards and pictures of everyone we think was involved. All of the information we could put together is laid out. “We put everything on lockdown. No one has been able to get any information to or from the island since we found you.”

She takes my phone with her good hand, holding it close so she can see everything. She zooms in and out, looking at all the information we collected. “Why?” she asks after examining it all.

“Because we were wrong too, and we just want to help you,” I say, lifting her chin so she has to look at me. “What do we need to know to fill in the gaps? Who’s missing?”

Tears fall from her eyes, and her breathing shudders. “It doesn’t matter anymore. He’s here. He found me, and he’s going to kill me.”

Her eyes start to get heavy as her body relaxes. The medication is finally starting to help.

“Who?” I ask, even though part of me already knows.

Her head bobs slightly so I ease it back to my chest, and wrap my arms around her as if they alone could protect her.

“Your father,” she whispers just loud enough for me to hear.

She dozes off to sleep just as the devil himself walks into the room. Slowly, I take the gun from my hip out of its holster, aiming at my father.

“You better have a damn good reason for why you’re here,” I tell him.

My father's arms go up in surrender, a move I’ve never seen him make before. “Can you let me start by telling you who she is?” he asks carefully. I nod my head, having asked him for that answer fifty times now.

“That girl in your arms is Eydis Petrov,” he says as he sits in the chair by her bed.

“As in Dimir’s daughter?” I ask, knowing he’s been looking for his best friend's little girl since the night he heard Damir was murdered in his own home.

My father nods and we sit there in silence, trying to process this whole thing. Evie or I guess Eydis, said my father was the missing link in all of this. Why would she think that?

“The men who attacked her were Russian or at least spoke it well enough. She thought Lev was here to kill her, and when I mentioned your name to her, it triggered a fight or flight response.” Evie moves in my arms, and I gently try to wake her, needing more information. “Princess, tell me how my father is the missing piece.”

She doesn’t move again and my frustration grows.What the fuck do I have to do to get some answers around here?

“Damn, son, I never thought you’d be the type to lose your sanity over a girl,” my father says, attempting to make a joke.

“Neither did I,” I tell him truthfully, “But this one isn’t just a girl. She’s a weapon. She’s got the face of an angel and the mind of a killer. She’s… she’severything,” I say looking down at her.

She tilts her head, opening her mouth to speak. “He killed my parents,” she says quietly, trying to open her eyes but failing, “He sent someone to kill them while… I watched.”

Her head lolls back into my chest as she goes still again. Dimir was my father's best friend, and his wife was my mother's. I look at my father, needing him to tell me the truth,right the fuck now.The gun is still in my hand, but I don’t need to aim it. The look I give him is enough of a warning.

“Why the fuck does she think that?” I ask him, my voice an angry whisper. Because as much as I want answers, I also know she needs rest to recover.

“I have no idea, son. I swear to you. You know the love I felt for her father, you know how devastated I was when I found the news. I have used so many resources trying to find her so I could protect her from what happened to her parents.” He stands up and begins pacing the room, “Someone else had to have gotten her first.”

I pull up the pictures on my phone that lay out everything we know, and slowly I piece it together.

---