He knows I was going to seduce him and try to make him talk.
“I was just hoping you would. I was the only person who could do anything to stop Jude. My mother is wheelchair bound and all we have is each other. I had to find a way.”
Sympathy is lost on men like him, just like my words.
“Right, well here’s the reality. Your brother is a member of the Order and therefore an enemy to me and mine.”
“He’s not a bad person.”
“He is if he’s working with those people.”
“No. I swear to you,” I answer. “He’s not a bad person.” I don’t know what Eric got himself into, but I know in my heart my brother is a good person.
“Believe what you want.”
“It’s true. If he was, he wouldn’t have wrote that letter you found in my things. The letter warning Massimo about your enemies.” That letter is my last ace.
I know he must have the letter because it was with the picture of Eric which he has.
The shock on his face now tells me he must be surprised to hear Eric wrote the letter. Knowing Eric wrote the letter should show he couldn’t have been all bad.
“Your brother wrote that letter?”
“Yes,” I answer.
“Your brother, a member of the Order, the same people who were responsible for the Syndicate bombing wrote it?”
My lips part and the blood drains from me. “It was them?” That was who Eric meant in the letter?
“Yes. They were the ring leaders.”
“Well, he must have found out what they were planning and tried to help.” That must have been what happened. It doesn’t explain everything else, but it makes sense now. “Eric asked me to deliver it to D’Agostinos Inc, to Massimo D’Agostino. I went there and slipped it under his door. I wasn’t supposed to open it, but I did and when I read it, I had to make a copy. My father died in the bombing. Eric knew who killed him and never told me what he’d found out. He went missing after that. He knew the Order were after him and he couldn’t do anything more to help. He’s been in captivity ever since.”
Aiden straightens up and stares at me, shock suffusing his face.
“Who was your father?” he asks with a rasp in his voice showing I’ve more than shocked him.
“Phillipe Falcione.”
“Phillipe doesn’t have a son called Eric and he doesn’t have any daughters.”
I press my lips together as different tears stream down my cheeks. It comes from the reminder of being forgotten, of living in the shadows, of being a secret.
“No one knew about us. No one was supposed to, but we were his children. If you don’t believe me, take a good look at my brother’s picture and you’ll see my father’s face. If you don’t believe that, then maybe Persephone Falcione can enlighten you.”
Aiden doesn’t say anything else.
He presses down on his back teeth and walks out of the room without another word.
I don’t know if he believes me or what he means to do next. What I do know is that I royally fucked myself over.
I’m a fighter.
I’m a natural fighter but I can’t break the chains that bind me, I can’t break down the walls that imprison me.
Everyone who’s caught me, had to tie me up or tie me down to beat me, defeat me, weaken me.
This time it looks like I’ve reached the end of the road.