Page 5 of Redemption
I burst through the open double doors and skid to a halt.
“What the hell is this?”
“I’m right here.” Keira’s voice comes from behind me, but my gaze is locked on what could be my mirror image.
My arm shoots out to the side as I instinctively put my body between my wife and a man who shouldn’t be in my inner sanctum.
“Who the fuck are you?” The question comes out like a rumble of thunder. “Where the fuck did you come from, and why are you here?”
Keira’s smooth fingers grip the hand I have out to my side, and I register her body heat moving behind me.
“We’re okay. But I don’t know what’s happening right now, and I don’t know what to do.”
Without looking behind me, I tell her, “Get Rory out of here. Go to the safe room, lock yourself in, and don’t come out until I come for you.”
“But—”
“Go!”
“He says he’s your brother. Your twin. He says you and your mother were kidnapped, and she was ransomed back and not you. He says Rory looks like the picture of your father in their family estate. Who is he, Lachlan? Who is he?”
I stare at the man three strides away from me as her words float in my mind, attempting to process what she said.
“Keira doesn’t have to leave. She doesn’t need protection from me, and neither does Aurora. I’m not a threat. I’m only here to help you. We want to offer you protection. Your daughter is the only heir to our family’s empire. Her safety and heritage are the reasons I’m here. Her grandparents want to make sure she’s never at risk again.”
More words to process, but my mind jumps on them immediately. Living on the streets as a kid teaches you a lot of things, and one of those things is to determine truth from lies very quickly. It’s the only thing that’s kept me alive all these years.
My body tells me instantly he’s not lying. Some or all of what he’s saying is the truth.
Holy fuck. Did not see this coming.
“Who exactly are you?” I ask without moving.
“Marco Giordano, the grandson of Comte Alessandro Marconi Giordano. The son of Alessandro Giordano and Francesca Comesetti Giordano. I’m your brother. Older than you by seventeen minutes. We’re identical twins.”
His words and the details that Keira gave filter together in my mind.
It’s preposterous. Ridiculous. Utterly inconceivable. And yet … something indisputable within me says it’s all true.
“You’re the grandson of a Comte—at least, before the abolition of Italian nobility. Your daughter is the heir to our family fortune that is perhaps vaster than your own. Your empire is collapsing, brother. We’re here to offer you a way out. Mother and I very much want all of you to be safe.”
“My mother left me in filth on the steps of a church in the French Quarter.”
The dark hair and face that make me feel like I’m looking at my own reflection shake, as if to say I’m wrong.
“No, brother. Our mother would never have left you. You were taken from her, and she has not yet forgiven herself for it. She awaits you on the tarmac. All of you. I did not know what kind of reception I would receive, and I could not risk our mother’s safety by allowing her to come here, as I’m sure you understand. If you wish to meet her, you can do so today. She has waited a very long time to see you again. It is her very greatest wish to see you and meet your family. She is the reason I’m here right now, at this very moment. If I had not come, she would have stormed your castle herself.”
Staring at the man who claims to be my brother, I finally lower the gun. “How did you know where to find us?”
I don’t bother to ask how he got inside, because anyone in this house would assume he was me. He’s my doppelgänger. Identical twins indeed.
“For over forty years, our mother refused to believe you were dead. For years, I’ve been monitoring every DNA bank, newspaper, internet source, and more avenues than you can even imagine. When your DNA hit as a match to mine, I started looking for you in earnest.”
He holds out a piece of paper. “But James Jones of PO Box 9979, Tuscaloosa, Alabama, was a dead end.”
I hear Keira’s sharp intake of breath. She and I both remember the moment she told me what she’d done—on that trip to Greece and Sicily in search of my lost heritage.
“Then, how? How did you find us?”
