Page 37

She was only fifteen years old. My blood boils and I slowly, very slowly, clasp my hands together to restrain myself because my anger has nowhere to go. All it can do is simmer beneath the surface and churn my insides while I focus on keeping my face as calm and as passive as possible.

Sabina doesn't look away from me.

"They locked me up after that. Kept me in a small room with a bed and a bucket, and I thought I was going to die in there. I was throwing up all the time, I was getting feverish and couldn't sleep. No one would listen to me when I asked for help and then… then my stomach started to get bigger, and I realized what had happened to me. After the first trimester, they moved me to a different room. One that was much more like a regular bedroom with everything I could need. They kept me there until…" Her breath catches and a single tear suddenly rolls down her cheek.

Sabina hastily wipes it away.

"They kept me there until I gave birth just after I turned sixteen." She winces as she speaks. "I was in labor for hours and then suddenly, I'd given birth to this little baby and I never got to see her. They took her from me and dumped me in a hospital where these cops came and started accusing me of abandoning my newborn. I was arrested and I kept telling them the truth, but no one listened to me. Without any proof and without the baby, people thought I was just lying to cover up abandonment. The case didn't really go anywhere, and after I was discharged, I was sent to a halfway house until I was eighteen."

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch Valentina's jaw working back and forth. I can already imagine what she wants to say about the twisted fucks who did this to Sabina, and I'd be right there alongside her.

Sabina straightens up suddenly and sighs. "I looked for them. Stuff I could remember that didn't really make sense. I looked for them and I couldn't find them. I spent months and months scouring the news for a hint of what could have happened to my baby, but I found nothing. Once I was released from the halfway house, I tried to find my parents but uhm…" Her face crumples slightly. "They didn't even look for me when I disappeared, so I scratched that off pretty freaking quickly. I tried. I looked for my baby, I looked for everyone I could remember. I put up posters. I called so many places for help and no one, no one believed me. Everyone vanished. It was like the last five years of my life had just been some kind of fucked up illusion."

My heart breaks for her. To suffer through something like that at any age is fucking traumatic, but for a poor teenager? My fingers dig into the spaces between my knuckles, and my jaw clenches as I wrestle down all the foul things that come to the surface. It's not my place to get angry for her right now.

"Anyway…" Sabina finally looks away from me and gazes down to where her hands twist together in her lap. "I never saw anyone again until I woke up here and that man, Mario, showed me that my daughter was alive and well."

I'm on my feet immediately, no longer able to contain the fury blazing in my chest. "My… grandfather?" I choke out between clenched teeth.

Sabina doesn't look at me as she nods.

"I…" How? How could he be connected to something so disgustingly barbaric? My own flesh and blood wrapped up in the kidnap, rape, and robbery of a poor fifteen-year-old girl? Coldness sweeps through my gut and I pace away to the window where even the gorgeous Italian sun isn't enough to thaw me. "Was he…" The words catch on the back of my tongue and I swallow hard. "Was he the man who raped you?"

My back twitches as I await Sabina's answer.

"No," she says.

It brings me no relief.

"It was someone much younger. I don't… I don't remember his name. I don't know if I ever knew it, actually." She clears her throat. "Anyway… the reason they kidnapped me, the reason they brought me here after so many years, is that Illyana… my daughter, she needs a kidney transplant. I'm her only match."

Only match? Bullshit. I bet the father, whoever the fuck he is, doesn't want to give up that piece of himself while they still have poor Sabina here to do it for him.

"A kidney?" Valentina finally speaks. "So they actually had cause to bring you here. Which means they've been keeping an eye on you over the years. Forgive me, but do you know if you are a match?"

I turn back to them both as Sabina nods.

"I am," she says. "They said they tested me when I first arrived here."

"The mix-up with the guns has to be a setup." Valentina locks eyes with me. "There's no way that it's just a coincidence. Why they would go to such lengths when they could just take her is… unusual, but those cunts back home must have lied to our faces."

"Who?" Sabina glances between us both.

I finally find my voice again. "A family back in the States claimed they had taken you, and killed you, because you were fucking up their deals and working for a Triad group that was getting in the way."

"But now," Valentina reasons, "that has to be bullshit. They wanted to make it look like they had a legitimate reason to snatch you so that no one would ask questions. It must be us." Valentina glances at me. "We eat there all the time, and her restaurant is close enough to headquarters that everyone would know she's automatically under our protection. They had to make it look like this was valid."

"Head… headquarters?" Sabina's eyes widen. "I'm sorry, what do you mean?" As her gaze darts between us, her chest rises with a deeper breath. "What's going on? Who… who are you, really?"

My lips part to tell her the truth but Valentina cuts in. "Cassian, we have to call home and let them know. If they went to this much trouble to make her kidnapping seem legit, then they knew about our connection to her and they were prepared for us to come and ask questions. Maybe even prepared to kill you."

"Seriously," Sabina remarks with a weak, nervous laugh. "Who are you?"

"We will tell you later," Valentina says as she stands. "You've just spilled the heaviest secret of your life, and what we have to share is even heavier, but we will share it. Just not right now." She digs her phone out of her jeans but as she taps the screen, my own phone on the table suddenly lights up and dances a few inches as it buzzes.

Sabina gasps softly, her words silenced by the alarming loudness of my phone against the wood.

All eyes lock onto it.