ng to n
t through the silence Luca's voice had left behind. Every man in th
his expression sharpened with interest, li
her fathe
distance from the man who'd just claimed her like a piece of furniture. "I don't know what arra
t worse. "Your father borrowed four million dollars from me eight months ago
the house. Take the c
er. "Your father's company is hollowed out - sold off in pieces to cover interest he
n her father.
eet her eyes. That
king back at Luca. "You said four mill
but close. Like he hadn't expected her to ask the right questio
cracked. Six million. The n
and pleading. "I was trying to save th
unhurried contempt of a man watching someone drow
ng to think past the roaring in her head. When she dropped
even. Just certainty, absolute and im
arly laughed. "
ry little patience for delay." He glanced at Antonio. "Your fathe
cuss. I'm not property,
kind of cold focus that made the room feel smaller. He took
er's debt is. You're simply how he chose to pay it." His
to step behind him without a word, and the f
nobody in t
at either of her parents, because if she opened her mouth a
-
t her - not like a man inspecting a purchase, but like he was solving som
e went downstairs for water and heard it: a low, broken sound coming from her fathe
f raw, gulping sobs she'd never once heard from him in twenty-four years. Antonio Moretti, who'd never sho
ught on something through the gap - the bottom drawer of his desk pulled open,
r, then slipped away before he could see her, heart poundi
etreated upstairs, she crept back down to the study. The drawer was stil
a. A much younger Antonio stood beside a woman Elena had never seen before in her life - dark-haired, laughing at
the photo
in her father's yo
e me, I
urred, a single question circling louder than
as Is
/1/121013/coverbig.jpg?v=f2f2655b0517c25b02d7f25028a9047d&imageMogr2/format/webp)