I stare at him, trying to make the story fit the man in front of me. He doesn’t look like a hero. He looks like a broken man who has been living in darkness too long.
“Where have you been all my life?” I demand, voice trembling now with a rage I cannot fully control. “Why weren’t you there? Why didn’t you ever contact me? Why did you let my mother… you let me grow up like I was nothing.”
His breath stutters. “I didn’t let you.”
My laugh comes out sharp. “You did. Because you weren’t there.”
His head tilts back against the chair. The movement makes him hiss in pain. He swallows and looks at me again, eyes furious with himself. “I tried.”
I stare at him. “Tried what.”
“I tried to reach you when you were younger,” he says. “Your mother cut me off. She disappeared. She changed numbers, changed addresses. She was a bitch. And then I got pulled into this operation and my life became a series of fake names and dead drops and nights where I couldn’t sleep because I was too afraid that one wrong move would get people hurt.”
My chest tightens. I hate that a small part of me wants to believe him. I hate that I want to find a reason that makes it less painful. “So you just… gave up,” I whisper. It’s not a question but fact.
“No,” he says immediately. “I didn’t. I stayed alive. I stayed in. Because Serafina’s ring isn’t just one ring. It’s layered. It’s connected. It’s bigger than one city. Bigger than one state. I thought if I could bring it down, then when I came out, I could come back for you. I could make it right.”
My throat burns. “And you didn’t.”
His eyes squeeze shut for a second. When he opens them, that one good eye is wet. “I didn’t get the chance.”
The anger in me shifts, twists. It is still there, but it has a new edge now. Fear. If this is true, if he’s telling me the truth, then I have been on the edge of something monstrous and never even knew it.
I swallow hard. “So you saw me online.”
“Yes,” he whispers. “I saw your face. And I… I couldn’t breathe. I knew I had to get you out fast. I couldn’t do it myself without exposing my cover and getting you killed. I needed professionals. Someone told me Maddox Security was the best.”
My heart stutters.
Maddox.
Dean.
Ozzy.
The people who saved me.
My mouth goes dry. “So you hired them?”
He nods. “I did. It was the only way I could move without Serafina noticing.”
My stomach twists. “Then why are you here?”
His jaw clenches, pain flashing across his face. “Because Serafina’s crew found out.”
A cold chill crawls down my back. “How?”
He swallows. “They found out I betrayed them. That I was moving money. That I was making contact. I went looking for you after the initial extraction failed. I wanted to be closer. Iwanted to see you with my own eyes, to make sure you were safe.”
My throat tightens. “Ozzy said you were missing.”
“I am,” he says. “To them. I went dark. I thought I could slip away for a few hours and come back without anyone noticing.”
He gives a broken laugh that turns into a cough. “They noticed.”
My skin prickles. “So they snatched you.”
He nods once, slow. “They snatched me when I went searching. They brought me here. They wanted leverage. They wanted to punish me. They wanted you.”