Page 62 of Heartless

The man’s gaze hardened.“You will stay out of reach, and you will let him die, or you’ll die with him.You can do this here, or I can take you to—”

Jake’s growl cut in.“Edo, she’s mine.”

“For now,” Edo snapped.

As the dangerous man’s icy stare set on Jake’s equally cold gaze, I cleared my throat, which did nothing for my hushed voice.“I want to stay here.Please.”

The man’s eyes shifted to mine.“Can you give me your word you will do nothing to help your father?”

Trying to catch my breath, my gaze instinctively searched for Silas, who nodded—albeit with a stony expression—while Camila threw me a tight smile.

Then, I turned back to the man who’d just threatened my life.I could give him plenty of assurance.In fact, I could show him.“Edo, can I show you something?”

For long seconds, his unsettling gaze drilled into mine.When his chin tipped down, I jumped on my feet.One of the men in black moved toward me, and I gasped as Silas stood in his path.

Unable to hide the tremors in my voice, I said to Edo, “I just need to grab something from my room.”

“Go,” he said, and I hurried to my quarters.

I went straight to the trunk at the bottom of the wardrobe.After retrieving the old, bulky, once-white photo album with shaking hands, I opened the door and froze again.Jake and one of the men in black were there.When the bodyguard’s gloved hand reached for the album, I moved closer to Jake.

“They’re p-pictures,” I whispered to Edo.

When he waved me forward, I went back to him as quickly as my legs would allow and knelt by the coffee table at his feet.

I placed the album on the coffee table and flipped it open.

****

Jake

I crouched by her side, positioning myself between her and Edo.Sile and Cam moved to stand on the other side of Edo’s armchair, and Zook settled in the seat Sienna had previously been in.

Once the album was spread open, she turned to a page where several pictures of an infant with a mop of dark curls were displayed on both sides.She flipped to the next page.

And fuck.The same infant was in diapers lying down in one of those glass hospital cribs.Its chest bore an angry scar from its upper breastbone to a few inches above its navel, covered with a see-through dressing.There was more gauze around the baby’s nose, an array of tubes attached to both its arms and hands, as well as electrodes on the too small chest.

In the faded picture on the top left, the infant had its eyes open, and there was no mistaking those eyes.

Cam gasped, and her hand flew to her mouth.“Oh, baba...”

Zook swore in Italian.Sile did it in English.

The next pages displayed more pictures of the baby’s harrowing journey.She paused a few pages forward where the baby had grown into a toddler, who was swathed in her mother’s arms and smiling.Caitlin Winslow had been a beauty, and Sienna might have her father’s eye color, but she’d taken everything else after her mother.

Twisting at the waist, she knelt up, facing Edo, and hooked two fingers around the neckline of her top.She pulled it down, showing the edge of a thin, slightly discolored scar running vertically in the center of her chest.

“My mother used to say I was born with a broken heart,” she murmured.

A weight parked on my chest.I didn’t know.Because I hadn’t fucking asked.

Sitting back on her calves, she continued.“I was born with a congenital heart defect, and I had three open heart surgeries.The first one when I was six days old, then when I was four months old, and the last one at sixteen months.”

Edo leaned in.“What does this mean?”

She flipped the album closed and clasped her fingers in her lap.“CHD is a heart disease, which I read somewhere disqualifies me as a living organ donor.So, even if I wanted to help Nigel, which I definitely don’t, I wouldn’t be able to.”

Edo locked his speculative gaze on her.“What would happen if you went through with the surgery?”