Page 99 of Accidental Alliance

Matteo looks up at me, sensing the shift in my tone. I immediately soften my hand on his back, moving in slow circles between his shoulder blades.

Davide’s eyes follow the gesture, then he returns his gaze to mine. “Whatever you need, name it. It will be done.”

There was a time in my life when that kind of promise would have sounded like salvation. A man with power and enough influence that with a snap of his fingers could offer sanctuary and a way out would have been a lifeline.

The problem is I am no longer naive enough to mistake a velvet-lined offer for kindness like that just because it does not come with a knife pressed openly to my throat.

In this world, generosity is rarely ever given for free.

I laugh, but it comes out brittle sounding. “With a price, right?”

He studies me for a long moment.

I let him take in the exhaustion beneath my eyes, the tension in my shoulders, the way my hand rests against Matteo while the other keeps a tight hold of my coffee, and see what remains of Isabella Russo after years of pretending to be Marina Hayes.

At last, he sighs. “I won’t lie to you. When you called, that was a part of the reason I wanted to help you. Not the full reason, of course. I would never want to leave an old friend’s daughter stranded with nowhere left to go.” His gaze flicks briefly toward Matteo, then back to me. “But I would be lying if I said the thought of your helping me with the Contis didn’t cross my mind.”

The honesty is refreshing in a strange way.

“It isn’t exactly what I want to hear. But at the very least, you’re being honest,” I say.

Davide’s expression softens slightly. “I respect you too much to pretend otherwise.”

I smile faintly, but there is no warmth in it.

I wonder what my father would think if he could see me now sitting across from one of his old friends with my son beside me, bargaining over the wreckage of the life I built from the ashes of his.

I wonder if he would be proud that I survived that kind of tragedy or furious that it has led me right back to the same table he spent years teaching me to understand.

A part of me already knows where this is headed. Maybe I have known from the moment I saw Elio Conti again.

Even if I take Davide’s offer tomorrow, even if he gives me passports, cash, a route out of the country, another name to wear like ill-fitting clothing, there is no guarantee it will be enough.

In fact, there might never be enough distance to put between my son and me and this world now.

Davide found me after years of silence, years of no contact and erasing every piece of Isabella Russo I could live without. If he found me, then Elio could find me.

If Elio found me, so could the others in his family, and any enemy who still remembers what my father’s bloodline is worth.

There is no disappearing back into life in the blue house no matter how badly my heart aches at the thought.

There is no returning to the woman who packed lunches for her son every morning, paid bills, kissed scraped knees, and pretended she had no history in the world of crime.

Marina Hayes is compromised.

There is no other truth to it.

My father would have said the same thing if he were sitting in Davide’s spot across from me instead.

He would have looked at me with those dark, knowing eyes and told me that the only way forward is through, no matter how much it hurts to put one foot in front of the other.

That is the part no one tells you about motherhood. They talk about the warmth of tiny hands reaching for you in the morning and the sweetness of first words.

The ache of watching them grow and finally letting them go once they are ready. They do not tell you there will be days when protecting your child means stepping straight back into the darkness you spent years escaping.

I look back at Davide. “If you can offer me protection for both my son and me, I will help you.”

For the first time since arriving, he smiles.