Page 268 of Corrupted Kingdom

My darling Adelita. Almost six years old now, and beautiful, a female version of her father.

The blue eyes. The wide cheeks and angular cheekbones. The dirty blonde hair, thick and impossible to untangle. They have the same toes, the same fingers. Until the day I gave birth to her, I did not know who her father was. Whether I’d carried a part of Dornan or a part of John for nine dangerous months, as I fled and hid and swelled with a baby I was terrified to bring into my chaotic existence, where we’d be forced to live in the shadows until fate caught up with us.

I loved her anyway, my baby girl. I didn’t care who her father was. I didn’t hope one way or the other, because despite everything, despite the blood and the lies and the betrayal, Dornan had let me run. He had let me go. Even as I hated him bitterly for everything he’d done – for murdering John, and Juliette, for beating me so badly that I’d miscarried the baby that was his – I still loved him, deep down, somewhere where the light could never quite get in, in the dark. I loved him because he let me go free.

But when I’d given birth in a makeshift hospital room inside an FBI safehouse, Lindsay by my side, Luis pacing anxiously in the hallway, I’d known. My Adelita had cried, and before they’d even placed her wet, howling little body on my bare chest, I saw a tuft of her blonde hair sticking up, and I knew she was John’s daughter.

‘Lindsay, are you staying for dinner?’ Adelita asked.

He shrugged his shoulders, looking to me. I nodded. ‘Of course I am!’ he said, wrapping her up in another hug, her little face pressed up against his neck. For a moment I imagined Lindsay was John and my throat ached.

‘Why don’t you go play, bebe,’ I said to Adelita. ‘We need to talk for just a minute. Can you find Lindsay some of that cake you baked the other day?’

Adelita agreed, skipping off to the kitchen in search of cake. That would keep her busy for at least a few minutes, and I could figure out what Lindsay was here for. Once she was gone, I gestured to the couch. ‘Sit. You want a drink?’

‘Please,’ he replied, sitting down.

I went to the large oak cabinet that ran along one wall, and selected a bottle of whiskey. I grabbed two tumblers and poured us each a double, because from the look on Lindsay’s face, we were going to need it. I handed one to Lindsay and sat beside him, waiting for him to speak.

‘You look pale, Ana,’ Lindsay said finally, his smile shrinking. ‘You look tired.’

I smiled, despite myself. ‘Your eyes look heavy,’ I said quietly. ‘Like they’re weighed down with a terrible secret.’

He looked at the floor, a self-deprecating smile reappearing on his lips. ‘You always did know how to read me,’ he said.

‘What is it, Lindsay? What is so important that you had to come to Colombia to tell me?’

He lifted his head and met my eyes again. ‘We raided the Gypsy Brothers’ clubhouse. We found a fingerprint in Dornan’s room. Juliette Portland’s fingerprint.’

I stared at him in horror, disbelief settling into my chest like an old friend. There was a chance that John’s daughter – Adelita’s half-sister – was still alive?

‘It’s old. It has to be,’ I breathed.

‘It’s a fresh fingerprint, Mariana. We have reason to believe that, somehow, Juliette is alive. And she is with the Gypsy Brothers.’

EPILOGUE

MARIANA

When I was a girl, I’d dream about marrying my king.

When I met Esteban, I knew. I knew he was the one for me. Something about the way he looked at me seeped into my bones and settled there. Warm. Familiar. I loved him so much, there was this constant ache in my chest.

I was nineteen when I felt him take his last breath, in my arms in a dirty alley. My life was over. I thought I’d die, too.

I didn’t. That heart of mine kept beating and aching, missing my lover, missing our son.

When I was a girl, I’d dream about marrying my king.

I never thought Dornan Ross would end up my king. But he did. He made me his queen.

I didn’t want it.

He didn’t care.

Our wedding night was spent in a hotel room in Vegas, with me locked in the bathroom, staring at the wall as he threatened to smash the door down and then beat my head in.

He’d already killed our child. I wasn’t going to let him get inside me again. Wasn’t going to let him poison me.

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