Page 8 of Redemption
Mount
My entire body shakes like a junkie needing a fix as I hold my wife and daughter, absorbing the enormity of what just happened.
I have a brother. A brother I just let walk out of my home, unescorted, without worrying he’s going to come back and try to kill me.
No wonder my wife thinks I’m insane. I would never normally do such a thing. But the sixth sense that has kept me alive all these years tells me the absolute truth: he’s not a threat. He wasn’t lying when he said he had no ill intentions. I know what those feel like. I’ve felt those all my life. But from him … no. All I felt from him was … love.
Love.
It’s an emotion I didn’t understand or have any familiarity with until Keira came into my life and then gave me a daughter. Waves of emotion wash over me as I hold my beautiful, brave wife and innocent baby girl.
Love.
That’s the emotion swamping me right now. If I wasn’t sitting, it would be more than enough to bring me to my knees for the second time today.
Only minutes before, I was in agony in the library, feeling like I was being torn apart and my soul was being ripped from my body. And now … laughter bubbles up from the depths of my being. How is this even possible?
“God certainly does have a sense of humor,” I say through broken laughter and sneaky tears. I don’t even recognize myself right now or how I’m behaving, but I don’t care.
I have a brother and a mother and a father.
I have a family.
Salty droplets continue to slip down my face, unchecked, and for the first time in my life, I don’t care. I don’t care that I’m crying. I don’t care.
I felt his love.
I have a brother. I shook his hand. He was real.
A sense of belonging I didn’t know I was missing fills in a hole in my heart that I didn’t realize was there.
How could I have known?
“How are you not freaking out right now and running a background check on him to make sure he is who he says he is?” Keira asks quietly as her searching gaze meets mine. Confusion lines her features.
“I don’t know. I don’t know how I know what I know, but I know I have a brother. I believe him.”
“Marco Giordano. That’s what he said his name was,” Keira says, as if a light bulb just went off above her head. “He said you’re the grandson of an Italian Comte. How can any of this be real? We have to check into him. I don’t want you to get your hopes up?—”
I silence her with a kiss to her beautiful lips. My wife, trying to protect me when I’m the protector. When I pull back, I take in the wild gamut of emotions running rampant across her stunning face.
“I know what I know. I can’t tell you how I know, but I know. He’s not lying. This isn’t some elaborate scheme. I might not know exactly what his motives are, but I know what I felt in my gut. It’s never led me wrong. It’s kept me alive through more than you can understand. I trust it above all things. That man has no ill will or dark intentions toward us. I know exactly what those feel like. I’ve known my whole life how to spot those. That’s the only reason I’m alive. But this … this is different. This is something else entirely. This is … real.”
Aurora fusses, and Keira rises from my lap to bounce her. I rise and reach out to take our daughter. She snuggles into me, her chubby little hand grasping the lapel of my suit before she settles down with her head against my chest.
This is what love feels like. And I have a brother who I felt it from too.
It’s almost too unbelievable to comprehend.
“So, what now? You’re … you’re just going to go … to some hangar? Without any backup? Without …” She stops herself short, but I know exactly what she wanted to say.
Without V. My best friend, my eminently trustworthy second-in-command, and the man who died, protecting my daughter. The reminder of his loss sobers me instantly.
I grip Keira’s hand and squeeze. “V is gone, Keira. I miss him like a lost limb. He died a hero, and for what he did, I owe him everything. But I can’t stop living because I don’t have him at my back. He was like a brother to me, but now … now, I might actually have a real brother. How can I not go?”
“I know, but?—”
“Listen to me, Hellion. I have to go. I have to. You have no idea how many sleepless nights I spent wondering where I came from. Wondering why they didn’t want me. Wondering if they were out there somewhere. I have to go.”
