Page 71 of The Freedom in Captivity

“Honey, I need to tell you something. Something that will explain a lot.”

I hate that tone and that name. It means whatever he’s about to say won’t be good.

“I’m not…” he rolls his lips together, pausing to think over his statement, “…who you think I am. Or who your mother thought I was. I’m only in Montreal on orders.”

“Orders?” I repeat, my stomach dropping. Whatever Dad’s attempting to tell me makes no sense.

“Across the country, there’s a hidden society that runs things and I’m from there.”

“Name?” Nico demands, his voice harder than earlier, edged with anxiety I hadn’t believed him capable of.

“The Seven. I’m telling you the truth when I say I know little about them, only that they exist. Only that they’re seven leaders scattered around the country, and my father works beneath one of them.” He’s never told me which one either, or what each of them are in charge of.

“Why B.C. then if they’re all over the country?”

I shrug one shoulder. As if I’m supposed to understand why a centuries-old institutional power chose thatonecity to be based out of. “Where do you think they’re trained? Again, I don’t know much about these details, but from what my father told me, there’s an academy. It’s where the richest of the rich kids all over the country attend university. It’s where the kids of the Seven are raised, trained to one day take their fathers’ spots. Fed under the umbrella of a degree, they’re spoiled, rich…dangerous. Go through their own trials before taking their places hidden in society.”

That’s where Yasmine is presently. If there’s one thing Dad better be doing, it’s keeping her safe. Yasmine’s bloodline links her back to Mom’s Italian mob family, who wanted nothing to do with us after Dad created distance between her and them, but it also connects her to the Seven. While not descended from any of them, Dad’s association puts her in their path.

“My father attended. Got close to one of the Seven. After graduation, he was given a single task: take down the crime lords in Montreal.” I toss a meaningful stare toward the Corsetti Boss standing the farthest away.

Lorenzo Corsetti could make grown men shit themselves with his deadly guise as he approaches. I force my back straighter, my shoulders up, in order to look stronger despite the chain around my neck.

“If this place controls the country, what does us owning the province matter? As you’ve said, they’re manipulating things higher up.”

My head falls slightly to the side, aiming to seem nonchalant. “That’s the thing. They’re so tightly wound into the entire legal, political side of the country, they’ve let other things slip. And in that time, in the past few decades, their hold on Quebec’s underground crime has gone unmanaged, leaving room for Corsettis to slip in.”

I remain silent for a second, scanning the room, watching the varying degrees of shock.

“You really never wondered why it all went down how it did?” I smirk, amused at the level this is hitting them. “How my father is Boss of his family, but where’s the rest of them?” My eyes drift over each Corsetti, making my point. “His father, his mother, siblings, cousins. He wed my mother for the connection to the Costa family because he needed that alliance for strength. The deal between Hawke and me for marriage—another ploy. He was all too eager to capitalize on my mother’s request. Pretty sure she had no idea about the snake she got into bed with, but,” I shrug again with half the amount of energy, “here we are. When she died, grief hit him hard, but worse—she was theinto you guys.Iwas his in. It’s why he was sent here. The Seven knew it might be a multi-generational takedown, but in the end, they want to control you. My father was simply laying the groundwork for it to happen.”

Caterina Corsetti steps closer, pausing beside her husband, a hand floating to cover her mouth, which has fallen open. “How did we not see any of that?”

Because he was good. He made you see what he needed you to.

“Because he flashed my mother’s fancy family name in front of you. You were distracted by the alliance. When the engagement was broken off, you assumed he was upset for losing the union. It was more that he lost his link to you, and he was frustrated.”

Della cuts in from the side, stepping in front of Nico to demand, “Is that why he married our mother?”

For a minute, I’m empathetic to the sisters because while the marriage was never a love-match for Dad, it might have been for their mother. The struggling woman working two jobs found herself enamoured with my father’s riches and charm, which he flaunted the moment he conveniently entered her life. They were a quick fling, to wrap her up in a whirlwind romance filled with fake promises and pretty words because Dad was trying numerous ways to take down the Corsettis after my engagement fell through.

“Told you, we’re all the same,” I remind her of words I had said to her previously. “Pawns in my father’s elaborate plan. Actually, no, because he too is a pawn in the Seven’s plan. When I say they control everything, I meaneverything. Yes, that’s why, Della. His plan fell through with me, so he wed a woman with two teenage daughters. It wasn’t random you two were chosen. Struggling family, no father in the picture, it was easy. He was able to be your mother’s saviour, a father to you two. You’d fall for his charms. And then your mother died.” Before more has a chance to spew from my lips, I manage to shut myself up.

Mom’s death was a genuine illness and unavoidable, but the accident happening on the very day their mother’s driver was unavailable and she got a last-minute call, which took her away from the house was too convenient.

I’ve never known for certain, but the rough feeling in my stomach every time I think about it has me wondering. The single instance I asked him about it, he rolled his eyes and shoved—physically shoved—me out the door. He never said yes…but he never said no.

I might not make the most ideal choices and I’ve become proficient at hurting others, but there is no gain in watching two sisters grieve a mother. Not when I don’t know for absolute certainty.

When the invisible band around my throat manages to unwind enough so I can speak again, I do. “After your mother’s death, my father went to work on his plan. There was some deviation,” I peek at Ariella, indicating my meaning, “but in the end, one of you managed to get in here under the belief he simply wanted Corsetti power.”

“How do you know all this?” Lorenzo asks. “How do we knowyou’renot lying?”

A reasonable question I shrug off, lips pursing. “You don’t. That’s up to you to figure out. I can’t do everything for you.” Focusing on Nico again, I add, “It gets better when two Haynes disappeared.”

I look to my left, to the woman clenching Rafael Corsetti like her life depends on it. She pulls from his hold, walking right up to me and murmurs, “Me.”

You.Who, by all my father’s accounts, should no longer be alive.

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