Page 9 of Forgotten Vows
"Her brother. Gio. He's in charge now?"
Tommy nods. "Yeah. Took over when Giovanni died. Word is he's even more of a bastard than his old man was."
My hands curl into fists, scars stretching over my knuckles. I can feel my pulse in my temples, in my throat, every pulse point in my body. "There's more. I can see it on your face."
Tommy takes a breath. "She has a kid… a son. Nine years old."
Everything goes silent—the hum of the city below, the sound of my own breathing, the clink of ice in Cormac's glass. All of it fades away until there's nothing but those words echoing in my head.
Nine years old.
The math is so easy it's automatic. Ten years since that night. Nine months for a pregnancy.
"Jesus Christ." The words come out as barely a whisper.
"Boss?" Tommy takes a step forward. "You okay?"
I'm not okay. I'm the furthest thing from okay.
I have a son.
Adriana has been raising my son for nine years, trapped in that house with her father and then her bastard of a brother, and I didn't know. I didn't fucking know.
"Are you sure?" My voice sounds scraped raw, and I can see my men looking at me curiously. I struggle to get my composure back. "About the kid?"
"Yeah. My contact's seen him. Said he's kept pretty isolated, like his mother. The family doesn't talk about him much. Doesn't parade him around. It's like they're ashamed of him."
Because he's a bastard. An illegitimate child born from what they think was rape. A stain on the Santoro name.
And he's my son.
I turn back to the window, taking a deep breath to try to calm down. The city blurs in front of me, the lights bleeding together into a wash of color that makes my eyes burn. All I can think of is that night… that one night that started out so perfectly—Adriana in that silk dress, her hair falling loose when I ran my hands through it, begging me to take what she wanted to give me. A night when I foolishly, childishly let myself believe, even though I was fucking old enough to know better, that we could be together and have everything. That we'd run away and build a life somewhere her father would never find us.
That night, it seems, we made a child. And she's been raising him alone, in that house, with Gio Santoro, who's apparently worse than his father.
My son has been living in that place for nine years, and I didn't know. I didn't… Icouldn'tprotect either of them.
I feel sick just thinking about it.
"Boss?" Tommy's voice is cautious. "What do you want us to do?"
What do I want them to do?I want to burn the Santoro estate to the ground. I want to kill Gio with my bare hands, slowly, the way his father wanted to kill me. I want to take Adriana and my son and disappear somewhere her family will never find us.
I can't disappear. I've worked too hard to build this, and this empire, these connections and this money and security will be the only thing that prevents Gio Santoro from coming after his sister if I follow through on the thought in my head right now.
But I can take her back. I can finally make her mine, the way I wanted to all those years ago.
But I need information. I need to know exactly what I'm dealing with—how many men Gio has, what his security looks like, what the weak points are in it, and how I can extract Adriana and our son without them getting hurt.
What if she doesn't want to go with you?
The thought hits me before I can vocalize what I'm thinking, and I feel ice in my veins. She's had ten years to think about what happened. What if she convinced herself that what we had wasn't real, that it was just teenage infatuation—a moment of rebellion that cost her everything? She could hate me for leaving her, even though she's the one who made me go.
"I want everything," I say, turning back to Tommy. My voice is steady now. "Everything you can find out about the Santoro estate. Security, routines, who comes and goes."
"That's going to take time. And money."
"I don't care. Use whatever resources you need. Call in every favor we have. Bribe whoever you need to bribe. I want this information yesterday."
