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“She knew because I told her.” A voice came from behind me. “It’s okay, Natelli. I should have expected this. Emilio warned us she’s smart.”

I turned around and saw Lilith standing there. “Come, Lexi. Let’s go for a walk.”

I stood for a moment, trying to piece it all together, but I was still missing something. She motioned to me again, so I followed her. Once outside, we didn’t say anything for a full minute until finally she spoke.

“I’m sorry, Lexi. I didn’t mean for this to happen.”

“For what to happen?”

“For everything. Slash coming with you, you being kidnapped, me having to come to the rainforest to see you and Slash, and for you finding out about me this way. I didn’t want any of this to happen.”

Holy freaking cow. I’d been right...and wrong. Lilith Burbridge was Slash’s biological mother.

“You’re his biological mother.” It sounded funny falling from my lips.

“Yes.”

Her simple response took my breath away. My emotions were dangerously uneven at the moment. Anger, relief, curiosity and anxiety all jumbled through me at the same time.

“So, why didn’t you tell us up front?” I asked, indignation in my voice. “Is that why you came to X-Corp to hire me? You wanted to insert yourself in my life, and by extension into Slash’s, too? If you wanted to meet him or reveal who you are to him, there are a lot easier and better ways to have done this.”

“I know.” Sadness swept across her face. “Let me assure you, this situation didnotcome about because I wanted to put myself into your life or his. It came about because I truly needed you and your skills. I had no idea you’d bring Slash with you nor that I would ever be here with you both. I’ve been working on this vaccine with Natelli for most of my life and when the hackers started getting close, I needed the best person on the planet to protect it. All fingers pointed to you. Call it the universe at work, God amusing himself with me, random coincidence, or Slash’s father orchestrating everything from heaven, but that person turned out to be you, Lexi. It’s really as simple as that, although I’m sure you don’t see it that way.”

“I’m not sure I do.” I wasn’t sure of anything at this point. Emotions are not easy for me to process and this situation was pulling out all the big ones in me. But I’m also the kind of person who tends to give a person the benefit of the doubt, so I dug a little deeper. “You really didn’t want Slash to find you?”

“What I want and what I intended are two different things. This isn’t an easy situation for any of us.”

“No it isn’t, and I’m not feeling exceptionally charitable toward you at the moment.” I had no idea why I just said that. Somehow my emotions had answered instead of my brain. Why was I so angry at this woman when I didn’t even know her or her circumstances?

She winced as I said the words. “What I meant to say, Lexi, is that I had no intention of disrupting either of your lives by stepping into them. The truth is I didn’t think you’d find out about me. Emilio warned me you were smart and exceptionally resourceful—both of you—but I never figured you’d connect the dots so quickly...or even consider that I was connected to you or him. How did you figure it out?”

“Natelli asked me if Slash was going to return to the NSA.”

She gave me an incredulous look. “From that you extrapolated that Natelli was Slash’s mother?”

“It raised a red flag, as we hadn’t told anyone where he worked. Only Gwen knew, and she swore she didn’t tell anyone. Natelli was in Italy at the time he would have been conceived, born, and eventually left at Father Armando’s church. I also saw her watching him sometimes, and she seemed sad or perhaps wistful. She’d even attended Sapienza University, like he had years later. But that wasn’t it, really. Her overt curiosity about him—but not me—raised my suspicions. Then when Father Quintela appeared, I figured we had someone in the group who had a connection to the Vatican, after Slash said it wasn’t him. Then, when I discovered Natelli had thanked Father Armando personally in her dissertation, I had a direct connection. It didn’t seem that hard to connect the dots at that point, except I didn’t get it quite right.”

Lilith closed her eyes. “A dissertation acknowledgment? Really?”

“Really.”

She let out a deep sigh. “Natelli is my best friend. We met in Italy. She knew Slash’s father, and she was there when we fell in love. She also stood by me when he left me for the church and I discovered I was pregnant. It was the most difficult decision of my life to give up my baby for adoption. Regardless, there was no question about leaving him with the one person I trusted the most—Father Armando. Natelli held the baby on the day he was born, and I think she fell a little bit in love with him then, too.”

I swallowed hard. I wanted to sympathize, but I was also angry at her for abandoning the man I loved, even while understanding it wasn’t my place to judge her or her actions. My emotions were all over the freaking place. “Why did you give him up?”

“Because I couldn’t keep him. My parents had no idea I was pregnant, and I was afraid they’d disown me if they found out. It was a different time back then. My baby’s father had left me for the church, and I had no husband, job or ability to support us. And, the truth is, I wasn’t sure I could withstand the memory of losing his father every time I looked at him. I was young and made the best decision I could at the time. Regardless, a day doesn’t go by that I don’t regret that decision. Trust me, I’m living my purgatory.”

I rubbed my eyes to push away the headache that was brewing there. A part of me wanted to feed on anger and hate her for abandoning and hurting him as she had. That was the easy way. But as much as I wanted to, I couldn’t.

“You never told Slash’s father you were pregnant,” I said.

“No, I didn’t. What would have been the point? He was in love with the church, not me. He would have left the church for me and the baby, if I’d asked. But I loved him too much to do that. He never would have been truly happy, and as much as I hated the truth of that, I accepted it.”

“You’re the reason Slash has American citizenship.”

“I am. I hoped someday he might feel a pull toward America, and by extension, me, so I made sure he had a birth certificate, which essentially gave him that choice. I’ve been closely following his career and life. I don’t expect you to understand, but even though he’sapartfrom me, he’s stillapartof me.”

I didn’t want to acknowledge it, but Ididunderstand, although a piece of me still nursed anger at how it had all turned out and how it had hurt him in ways I couldn’t even comprehend. But just like all of us, Slash had become who he was in part due to the choices made by others.