“Let me finish! I want Theo to stop investigating more than anything in the world. I’m fucking doing everything I can to push him away because if he . . . if what happened to Gail happens to him, I won’t be able to live with myself.”
Something in what I said caught Amelia’s attention. She stood up and walked to a dusty filing cabinet in the back corner without a word. It must have been a century old. She pulled a chunky brass key from her pocket and opened the top drawer.
“Why are you so worried about Theo anyway?” I asked meekly, partly because I feared the answer.
She placed a hand in the drawer and removed a simple piece of letter stock, folded in two.
“You really care for his safety?” she asked, staring at the paper.
“I do.”
Amelia nodded, turned, and handed me the paper.
It was an official document, with a seal of Switzerland affixed at the top. A certificate of live birth dated March 29, 2002. Clipped to it was a card with two ink-stamped footprints. The newborn’s name: Theodore Scamarcio.
“I had to bribe the doctors ten thousand euros to give me that paper and file a false one in its place.”
My breath went out of me like I’d been kicked in the gut. Theo . . . son of Simone and the King-breaker Rafael Scamarcio. No wonder Zephyr feared him. No wonder he kept him close, despite hating him profoundly.
“I’m sure it was ten times what they normally demanded for a bribe, but what could I do? They knew I was rich. Rafael drove me to the hospital in his Lamborghini. And Geneva is lousy with Stormcloud legacies. I’m sure someone in that hospital knew who Rafael was. They knew a Scamarcio child would be killed immediately. So they took me for all the cash I had—and they named him Theo Brant.”
“He doesn’t know you’re his mother?”
She sighed. “It took me twenty years to get him back. Friends of Rafael’s raised him, but I knew when he was a man, I would bring him here.”
“Why?” I asked, unable to hide my disbelief. “You know better than anyone what a poisonous place this is. Why did you bring him here?”
“It was always my plan for when he became a man. I thought I could protect him, Biba. I’d missed him terribly, and . . . I thought if I could bring him here and get him the protection of the Williams family . . . I thought he’d be safe, and I would have him close. But he rebelled the moment I brought him. He wouldn’t accept Zephyr’s offer to be a King.”
She slumped back down into one of the guest chairs.
“I’ve been trying so hard ever since to find another way to protect Theo. But he keeps . . . pushing the people who want to hurt him most.”
“I know,” I answered. “Neither one of us can stop him.”
“He almost died last year,” she whimpered. “It killed me to see him in the infirmary. But I hoped that might wake him up to the gravity of the situation.”
“Who was Rafael?” I asked.
“The last King of Coins. He belonged to another girl while we were students here, but then . . . so many things happened. Such loss. The destruction of the Kings, at least for a while. While we picked up the pieces, I was able to make Rafael understand the depth of my love, and for a time, we thought we could escape this place and all the poisons that lurked in it.”
I placed a comforting hand on her shoulder. She jumped, then looked at me.
“Why are you telling me?” I asked.
“If you truly care for Theo, I want you to know the truth. Together we can stop him.”
“There is no stopping him, Amelia. He’ll keep going no matter what we do.”
“Oh, Biba,” she sighed. “I’m happy you came here. I really did care for Harry. He was a good man. He looked out for Rafael and me.”
The words cut through me like a blade. What had my father been to Amelia? Or she to him? Or both of them to this Rafael?
“You need to tell me everything you know.”
She shook her head vigorously like if she refused hard enough, I would just leave.
“You mustn’t, Biba. Please, just forget these questions. If you just stay the course and get through your time here. You could live a good life.”