Page 43 of Radical Daddy

“Where do you think you’re going?” growled her guard, Igor, the jagged-toothed and ugliest motherfucker she had ever seen.

“Swimming, or is that against the rules now as well?” She glowered at him haughtily in a perfect rendition of the mafia don.

Igor snarled in response but didn’t say anything. She had no doubt that he would like nothing better than to see her suffer, but Bulldog had issued numerous warnings about harming theprincess. All the guards understood Chiara was there for a specific purpose, and they knew Salvitore would kill whoever hurt her without receiving a direct order from him.

“Well, thanks for ruining it,” she snapped as she walked back into the house, the words chasing after her. “Suddenly, I lost my desire for swimming, especially if your ugly ass stands around watching.”

How she ended up in Salvitore’s study, she had no idea, since it was off limits to everyone. “Fuck that, he’s not here, so who’s gonna stop me from snooping?” Closing the door behind her with a soft click, she pressed her back against the door as she looked around the room.

An oversized fireplace dominated the right side of the room, with a collection of framed pictures above the mantel. To the left, there were two massive double doors leading to an open terrace. On either side of it, two full walls were covered with heavy floor-to-ceiling bookcases. A deep red-and-black Persian rug with a diamond pattern made an odd centerpiece over the dark, polished floors. The rest of the décor were accent pieces.

In the center stood a massive, almost medieval wooden desk with a top carved from a single piece of wood and one comfortable-looking desk chair behind it. Along the right side of the wall was a bar lined with expensive imported booze. Not sure what drew her to the antique mahogany bureau bookcase to the left of the terrace doors, but she found her feet moving toward it. It appeared to be empty except for a small, locked door. Chiara squatted down, opened it, and stared inside.

“So, what have we here?” Chiara whispered as she peered at the file box. It was rather thick and a quick flick-through produced hordes of legal documents and photographs. “What the effen hell?” she muttered as the name Rose caught her eye. Sitting down on the carpet, she placed the folder on the floor in front of her. Looking around, she pondered her next move. Should she dare open the file and read it? What if someone caught her?

“So, what are they gonna do to me? Whip me? It’s not as though I’m not used to it. Fuck it, it’s my name in there. I have a right to know what he’s hiding from me.” With trembling hands, she opened the folder.

At the front of it was her name. At least the name she had believed was given to her by her birth parents, Rose Mary Martens. Except, they weren’t her real parents. They never told her she was adopted.

“Oh, lucky me,” she sneered. “To have been adopted twice in one lifetime.”

Tears filled her eyes as she remembered the happy, carefree life she had lived with Danny and Lilly Martens. Movie nights, picnics, holidays at the coast—so many, it hurt her head just thinking about them. She wiped away her tears with an irritated gesture.

Why was she still grieving the deaths of her adopted parents when they had lied to her all her life? They were both botanists and had left on an excursion to the Amazon, leaving her behind with the promise they’d be back in six months. Come to think of it… what kind of parent left their child at home for six months with a sibling who hated the sight of her? They knew Aunt Vera didn’t like her. She never made a secret of it. Chiara never understood why.

“Perhaps it had to do with who my real parents were?” The question was wrung from her lips as she hesitated to turn the page. Life had turned its back on her in an unexpected, cruel way. What if what was in the file would only add to the clusterfuck her life had turned into?

“You won’t know unless you look. C’mon! You’re not the prissy Rose Mary Martens anymore. You’re Chiara Sanchigo. You’ve now got a backbone made of steel. Turn the fucking page. See who threw you to the wolves in the first place.”

Chiara took a deep breath, determined not to cry again. Who knew that one damn file could make the past and present so intertwined and confusing? Slowly, with a hand that was decidedly shaky, she turned the page.

INFORMATION BIRTH, NAMING, AND STATUS OF ADOPTION AUTHORIZATION:

Savannah Brookes (birth name), who will be raised as Rose Mary Martens (adopted name).

Birth mother: Sera Anne Brookes.

Birth father: Not listed.

Adopting parents: Danny and Lilly Martens.

For long moments, Chiara just stared at the names, reading her mother’s name over and over, then murmuring her birth name in a mantra in a voice that became hoarser the more she said it.

“Savannah Brookes, Savannah Brookes, Savannah Brookes.”

After some time, she ran her finger over her mother’s name, tracing its letters. Her vision blurred as tears once again gathered in her eyes. She pushed it back, sniffed once, and wiped her tears as she read the names of her adopted parents, Danny and Lilly Martens, in a desperate attempt to find something solid and familiar she could cling to.

“Why did you give me away, Sera Brookes? And who the hell is my father?”

Sensing a presence in the doorway, Chiara froze and watched in horror as her captor father strolled toward her with a cigar clamped in his mouth. He didn’t seem angry, although his menacing scowl caused her blood pressure to escalate. He halted a couple of feet from her and folded his arms over his chest, staring at her with a cryptic gaze.

“This ain’t going to end well, for anyone, is it?” she hissed between clenched teeth. It wasn’t the best reaction after getting caught reading his private property, but to hell with his feelings. There was no excuse for the way he had uprooted her life without a second thought about what the emotional shock would do to her.

“From what I just heard, I believe you’re the one who doesn’t like what you just found. Am I right, young lady?” His voice was cool and clipped. His penetrating gaze bore deep, revealing the angry man beneath the calm exterior. “Surely, that’s not a reason to risk punishment. You must have realized you’d get caught if you entered my personal space.”

Chiara broke off from his snaky glare as rage swelled inside of her. He was angry, but looking at him closely, he didn’t seem all that upset that she had found the file.

“I have a right to know who my birth parents are. This folder, some of these documents, from what I read, are supposed to be confidential since it was a closed adoption, which I believe means the information about my birth mother was never supposed to be disclosed. How did you come by it?”

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