Page 98 of Torn By Fate

“Your abilities impress me,” I drawled, and I meant it. What she had accomplished… it deserved nothing less than admiration. “But get to the point.”

A ghost of satisfaction flickered in her eyes. She seemed to revel in the successful deception she had so flawlessly executed, a quiet pride in her expression.

And as much as I hated to admit it, she had every right to that feeling.

“Let me paint a picture for you.” Her brow raised, the corner of her lips lifting. “A quick, vivid one. Enzo Salvatore sent Angelo to infiltrate Santino Morelli’s operations. To spy on him. To learn everything and every move Santino made.”

I knew this part. Finally, she said some words that made sense to me.

“And Angelo did that,” Serafina said. “He really did. And along with all the things he found out, he also discovered Santino’s affair with Violet.”

“Violet...” The name left my mouth before I could stop it, trailing off into silence. I knew that name…

“My mother,” Serafina admitted, and her shoulders trembled the slightest bit. “My mother was a sweet woman. A good woman. Angelo, my father, approached her because she was Santino’s mistress.”

She paused, and I watched her delicate throat work as she swallowed.

“What better way to keep an eye on a man than to put yourself into the life of the woman he’s secretly keeping as his whore?” The word whore came out hard and sharp.

“But he didn’t think he would end up falling in love with her. That wasn’t part of his plan. He was supposed to use her. Extract information. Maintain the cover. That’s what spies do, isn’t it? They use people. They take what they need and they leave.”

She looked at me, and the challenge in her gaze was unmistakable, and I understood the words she left unsaid—you would know about that, wouldn’t you?

My heart thundered in my chest. “But he didn’t leave.”

She nodded once. “He stayed. And my mother, she fell in love with him too. A man who saw her as a person, not a possession. Not a secret to be kept. Not a thing to be hidden away and used when it was convenient.”

Serafina closed her eyes once, squeezing them tightly shut before she opened them again. They glistened before she blinked, and then it was gone. “My mother got pregnant,” she announced and then took a deep breath. “And she realized that she deserved better. That the child she carried deserved better. So they ran. They left everything behind. Santino’s protection. Enzo’s trust. And they started a new life. With me.”

She swallowed hard this time, her voice breaking off a little, and my eyes hardened on her as I started noticing the cracks in her storytelling, in her emotions.

The silence that followed after her words was thick, suffocating.

Thud.

Something violent twisted in the pit of my stomach. Fuck.

Thud.

All the pieces clicked into place. FUCK.

“You are—” The words caught in my throat, and I had to force them out, each one tasting so fucking bitter on my tongue. “Santino’s illegitimate daughter.”

It wasn't a question.

I didn't have to ask her that question.

I knew.

I fucking knew. Because I saw it in her eyes. Her silent confession was undeniable.

Serafina looked at me, and for the first time since she’d started speaking, a broken vulnerability cracked through her facade—a fracture in her deceit, brief and devastating.

“Yes,” she said. “I am.”

The word settled over me, pulling me under the storm she had unleashed on us. I felt her truth, that ugly reality, in my chest, in my ribs and in every cell inside my body.

She was the daughter of a man who had no idea she existed. A man who had looked at her across dinner tables and never once recognized the blood that ran in her veins.