Page 49 of Anti-Heroes in Love Duet

“I’m your father, Elena, put that shit down,” he demanded in that patriarchal way he had of ordering his children around.

It never worked, not then and certainly not now after years of negligence followed by years of abandonment.

It disgusted me how obsessed he was with being Italian, how he still punctuated his speech with it. He was an actor typecasting himself in a role he’d never fit.

“I’ll put it down when you tell me what you’re doing here.”

He barely resisted the temptation to roll his eyes. “Here in New York or hereattemptingto have a conversation with my firstborn?”

“Both,” I bit out behind my bared teeth.

It hurt to look at him, to see the resemblance on the surface and to know that his tainted blood was also inside me. He was everything I reviled in this life, and I truly thought I’d never see him again. When he disappeared after Cosima moved away to model at eighteen, I’d just assumed he would end up in some ditch somewhere, killed by the Camorra or some other wastrel he’d gotten too involved with.

Our reunion only served to emphasize that I’d actually hoped he was dead all these years. Even living and breathing in front of me, looking at me from the same stormy gray eyes as my own, he was still dead to me.

He dropped his hands in exasperation, treating me like an unruly child. I was reminded that he’d never favored me, not like he did Cosima for her beauty and Sebastian for his maleness, not even like Giselle who had appealed to him for the longest, holding out hope he might one day change. Seamus had never liked me because from the time I could cogitate, I was smart enough not to likehim.

“I moved to New York shortly after you did,figlia mia. I wanted to keep an eye on you and your mother.” He ignored my uncharacteristic snort of disdain. “Before you hit me with that poison, you should know. Cosima made me swear not to contact any of you again.”

Every atom of my body stilled then burst into a flurry of movement as thoughts fell like dominos in my path of understanding.

“Why would she do that?” I spoke slowly through numb lips because I was almost there.

Almost at a conclusion my mind had been trying to draw for years, only I hadn’t allowed it because the truth was too eviscerating to acknowledge.

He pursed his lips, another characteristic I’d inherited. “Cosi, well, she offered herself to the Camorra in order to repay my debts. It was all her idea, you understand. I only found out about it after the fact and tried to stop her, but it was too late.”

His words had an echo, my head empty of everything but what his speech confirmed.

Madonna Santa.

Cosima had sold her body to repay our father’s gambling debts.

Bile surged over the back of my tongue, and before I could control it, I leaned to the side and vomited all over the back wall of the alley. The poison of the truth worked through my system, pulling everything from me in a toxic rush I spewed onto the dirty asphalt. Tears sluiced down my cheeks as I retched painfully, but I held myself up with one hand on the wall and closed my lids to hold on until it passed.

Done, I wiped my mouth with the back of my hand and leaned against the wall a few feet from the crime scene. My hand trembled as I brushed clammy sweat off my brow.

It was so atrocious. So unspeakable.

My poor Cosima, the most beautiful human I’d never known. I couldn’t fathom what she’d had to do in order to get us out of our Italian nightmare and into our American dream.

“Do you know who bought her?” I whispered, staring at Seamus through lowered lids, unable to bear the sight of him.

I didn’t believe for one fucking second that he hadn’t been behind the exchange. Narcissus himself had nothing on Seamus goddamn Moore. He would have no remorse exchanging anything for a chance at his own freedom and betterment.

He hesitated, licking his lips nervously. “Her husband, Alexander Davenport.”

Physically rocked by his words, I let the wall at my back anchor me. “You’re kidding.”

“Would I kid about something like this?” he countered with a raised brow. “Listen, it’s all turned out for the best. Your sister is wildly in love with the bastard.”

“She probably has Stockholm Syndrome,” I yelled.

He shrugged. “They were apart for years, so I don’t think so.” Watching me struggle, he sighed gustily and dragged a hand over his beard. “This isn’t why I wanted to talk to you, Lena.”

“Don’t call me that,” I snapped, settling my hand over my oceanic stomach to steady myself. I pushed off the wall to face him as I wanted to, strong, shoulders back, chin hiked high so I could look down the length of my nose at him.

“Elena,” he tried to cajole, hands widespread in surrender to my mood even as he took a little step forward and affixed that crooked smile to his face that was a facsimile of Sebastian’s. “I’m here because I don’t want you to get hurt.”