Page 60 of Devil’s Azalea (Nightshades #3)

EMILIA

“You all probably remember me. I’m Emilia Azalea Moretti—wife to Rafael Moretti, and a former FBI agent.”

My voice comes out strong and clear. I’m actually proud of how steady it sounds because inside, I’m completely falling apart. My heart aches so badly it feels like it’s splitting in my chest, so tightly bound since yesterday I can hardly remember what it’s like to breathe without pain.

I’ve been teetering on the edge of an anxiety attack since the moment I scheduled this conference, and these camera flashes are drilling into my skull, pushing me closer to the breaking point.

But I hold on. I have to.

I have to do this.

For myself. For Rafael. For Katie. Hell, maybe even for my father and Stacey, twisted as that sounds.

“I joined the bureau because I wanted to keep the memory of my detective father alive and continue on a path that would make him proud. That is why I’ve called you here today.”

The questions hit me immediately, overlapping and aggressive .

“Why did you marry a known criminal if you wanted to make your father proud?”

“Your husband and his friends just got arrested by the FBI—were you in on it too? Is that why you married him?”

“Are you going to tell us why your husband was released from custody?”

My gaze drifts to Rafael at the back of the room as the reporters toss their questions at me. Even from here, I can see the tension in his shoulders, the way his jaw is locked tight. He looks like he’s ready to burn this entire building down if anyone so much as breathes wrong in my direction.

Part of me is still raw from his lack of faith in me, but can I really blame him? When have I ever given him reason to trust me completely? The truth is, I haven’t—and I’m going to change that. I’m going to earn his trust, no matter how long it takes.

But he’s here anyway. And that means everything.

His presence calms me, pushes the worst of my anxiety into the background where it can’t paralyze me.

I raise a hand to stop the flood of questions.

“I’m not here to discuss my husband. I’m here to talk about myself and the corrupt officials within the Federal Bureau of Investigation who need to be exposed. ”

The reporters go crazy again. A fresh volley of flashes blinds me, and for a heartbeat, I have to look away before my nerves snap completely. When my eyes refocus, they catch Katie’s blue gaze at the side of the room.

She gives me an encouraging smile, and I manage one back. I wouldn’t be standing here without her. In the end, she truly is a friend, despite the circumstances that put us on opposite sides of a line I didn’t know existed.

She went looking for Vladimir Volkov, and well, I can’t pretend not to know how she got the information I’m about to share with the world .

I move my gaze back to Rafael and keep it firmly on him as I continue. “It all started ten, no , fifteen years ago?—”

The beginning flows easily enough. I tell them about my father’s investigation into Alfonso Moretti—how he kept running into dead ends because everyone in our town had been bought over by Alfonso.

How he eventually caught the attention of an FBI agent with the same mission, and how they formed an alliance to bring Alfonso’s empire down together.

It went well—until the bust that led to my father’s death.

According to what Katie found out, someone on the force tipped Alfonso off, and they laid a trap for my father and his partner Stacey, which unfortunately only my father walked into. He lost his life—or so we thought.

Here’s where the story gets twisted. “Alfonso was supposed to meet with the Russians that day, but he canceled to set the trap. The Russians, however, didn’t get the message because of some miscommunication and were already on their way.

They arrived at the meeting point after Alfonso had left and found my father, half dead on the scene. ”

I pause, gripping the edges of the podium. The room has gone dead quiet except for the whisper of camera shutters.

“They knew who he was, but they decided to save him anyway, thinking he’d be an asset if he was indebted to them. So they stripped his identification, put it on another dead body that was damaged beyond recognition, and took my father to their compound where they nursed him back to health.”

My voice wavers slightly, but I push through. “My father was in a coma for two weeks, and by then, the news of his heroic death had already spread everywhere.”

This is where it gets harder. I skip the part about my foolish quest for revenge—that’s not their business.

“When he regained consciousness, he had no memory of who he was, and the Russians—specifically Vladimir and Sergey Volkov—shrugged it off and decided to recruit him as one of them. And that’s how Tomassi Rossi went from heroic cop to mere criminal.”

Because of the dishonesty of those darned Russians.

In a way, I’m glad that my preconception of my father wasn’t totally wrong. I have no doubts now that if he had remembered who he was when he woke up, he never would have slipped into that criminal lifestyle.

“However, as the months went by, fragments of his memory started to return. By then, he was in too deep, and the world had moved on from his death. But he reached out to his old partner, Stacey, anyway.”

I can see Rafael’s jaw tighten from across the room. Does he know where this is heading?

“She was shocked to discover he was alive—and what he had become—but Stacey was never one to let an opportunity pass her by. She saw a way to turn his connection to the organization to her advantage, even though they hadn’t been quite as organized as they are now.

Because somewhere in that year, she realized government money wasn’t nearly enough to sustain her, and she decided she wanted her share of blood money instead. ”

“So she made a deal with my father. He’d stay embedded with the Russians, and she would help them stay out of jail… and find the kind of victims no one would notice were missing. In exchange, she demanded payment.”

My chest tightens as I approach the most painful part.

“My father agreed, but he wanted something else from the arrangement. He… he wanted her to find me and take care of me. He figured I would’ve already moved on from his death and didn’t want to disrupt my healing process by suddenly reappearing.

But he needed to know I was taken care of—that my life was set. ”

That night at the diner. That fucking night when Stacey came to see me. It was my father orchestrating it all along . Why couldn’t he have just come to meet me himself?

“For five years, this arrangement continued. Stacey climbed the ranks to become Special Agent in Charge, all while taking dirty money from the very criminals she was supposed to be hunting.”

I pause, watching the shock ripple through the crowd.

“But eventually, Stacey wanted out. The problem was, she couldn’t find a clean exit without destroying her reputation and losing her job.

So she hatched a plan to use the Nightshades as her exit strategy.

They were just starting to take over New York, and she figured they’d make perfect scapegoats.

” My gaze sweeps the room. “She assigned me to infiltrate Rafael’s house and report back to her. ”

My gaze meets my husband’s again. He doesn’t look shocked by anything I’m revealing. He doesn’t even look surprised, which tells me he had already found out but kept it from me.

As a way to protect me?

I take a breath and go on. “What Stacey didn’t count on was the Nightshades actually investigating the missing children case themselves—trying to solve it, not cause it.

This threatened to ruin everything for her.

So she pressured me over and over, until the night I saw the Nightshades’ location and shared it with her. ”

“She already knew where they were going and went there with a team of agents, killing everyone in sight. Everyone who could point a finger at her corruption. Including my father.”

My breath catches in my throat, but I force myself to continue. “Then she lied and told me Rafael did it. Because if I hated him and avoided all contact with him, how could he ever tell me what he’d really witnessed that night?”

Manipulative bitch .

“But turning me against the Nightshades wasn’t enough.

She wanted them to hate me back. So she tricked me into believing they were kidnapping little girls last year, knowing it would drive me to do something reckless.

” I take full responsibility for the way I behaved afterwards—going to the airport and opening fire. Kidnapping poor Elira...

But Stacey was the one who sent someone to blow up my car, which Elira had used to escape, knowing the guys would think it was my doing and hate me forever.

I don’t mention the airport, or Elira, or the car bombing to the reporters. Those details aren’t for public consumption. But the weight of what I’ve done still sits on my chest like stone.

“The main point I’m trying to drive home is the blatant corruption inside the FBI.

Corruption that has cost countless people their lives.

” Like the previous director—who was getting in the way of Stacey’s ambition.

So she set her good old partner, Sergey Volkov, on him and made his death look like a heart attack.

I turn to the projector screen behind me and switch it on, then scroll to the video Katie gave me. My heart hammers as I hesitate. There’s no going back after this.

My little speech could still be dismissed as hearsay, but once this footage is broadcast to every news outlet in the city, there’s no covering it up.

But Stacey never gave me any consideration. And honestly, this is for her own good—she needs to be stopped.

I hit play.

The video begins. Stacey, Greg, and Sergey Volkov fill the screen.

“What the fuck are you and your agents doing, Rodrigues? You promised me New York would be mine by now. You can’t bring Moretti down?” Sergey’s voice booms with fury, and the room collectively gasps.

“Calm down. We need to be careful with our approach so it doesn’t blow up in our faces. I assure you, we have it under control,” Stacey says cooly.

“You’ve been saying that for the past five years, so pardon me if I no longer believe you.”

“Mr. Volkov, if I may, we have our best agents on the case, and we’ll?—”

“Shut the fuck up,” Sergey snaps at Greg. “What the fuck is this imbecile even doing here?” he asks Stacey.

“He’s the director of the New York branch, and you’ll treat him with respect.”

More gasps ripple through the crowd. I turn away from the video—I’ve watched it enough times already—as they continue discussing their plan to bring the Nightshades down and carve up the city between them.

The side door opens, and I smile when Romero, Maximo, and Michael slip in.

But my smile fades when three more men slip in discreetly. From their build and the way they carry themselves, I know instantly—they’re agents. Federal agents. And I know exactly why they’re here.

I take a step back from the podium, my pulse spiking. “I hope the attorney general and the United States government can find a way to bring an end to this corruption for the good of our city and country, and that?—”

My gasp sounds impossibly loud as my body jolts back, incredible searing pain exploding through my torso. I stare down at my side in horror as a red stain spreads across my jacket, growing larger by the second.

I’ve been shot. Holy hell, I’ve been shot.

Pandemonium erupts. People scream, dive for cover, scatter in every direction.

From the corner of my vision, I see Katie crumble to the floor— no, no, they got her too —and then my vision starts to fade around the edges .

The last thing I hear before the darkness takes me is Rafael’s voice, raw with anguish, shouting my name like a prayer and a curse all at once.

I’m sorry, Rafael. I’m so fucking sorry.

And then there’s nothing.