Page 143 of Restless Hawke

Living in remote areas with tiny populations.

Keeping to ourselves as much as possible.

She was protecting me.

“I didn’t know that when I met him. He wasn’t the man you all know to me.”

Coen and the rest of the Hawkes give me skeptical looks, and I can’t really blame them.

“He appeared at the social worker’s office and squatted in front of me with so much kindness in his eyes, so much affection, that I instantly felt at ease with him. And he told me he was my father.” I release a little mirthless laugh. “I thought he must be lying. But then he pulled out a picture of him and my mom from years earlier, and he explained that they had met when she was backpacking through Europe and had been together. He said he had been searching for her for years…”

Gabe narrows his eyes on me. “Was any of that true?”

“I don’t know.” I shake my head. “I mean, I saw photos of them together that prove they did meet when my mom was in Europe and were together for at least a couple of months, given the dates on the pictures. I don’t think she realized who or what he was at that point. He was already in hiding. Everyone believed his brother had killed him. He was living under a different name.” I shrug. “He was just a handsome, charming Italian man she met and fell in love with before she decided it was time to pack up and move on.”

Stone’s gaze flicks from me to Coen, then back to me. “Did she know she was pregnant when she left?”

That’s what I’ve been asking myself for years.

Why did she leave him?

“I think she must have. He always described her leaving as veryabruptand without warning. There one day and gone the next.”

I wince at my description and turn my eyes to the man seated beside me.

That’s what I did to him.

We spent a wonderful night together, and I justleft.

I can’t imagine what that felt like for Coen.

He squeezes my leg again, as if he can read my thoughts and is telling me it’s okay, even when it never really will be.

Luca, who has remained silent thus far, meets my gaze as I force myself to continue.

“I think she found out who he was and hid the pregnancy from him intentionally. It’s the only thing that explains her rapid departure and the way we lived once I was born. She had to have known…”

Stone spins the head of his cane in his hand. “So, what happened when your father came for you?”

“They let him take me, so whatever evidence he provided was sufficient for the courts, though if it hadn’t been, I don’t think that would’ve stopped him. He packed me up on a private jet and flew me to a remote villa in the Alps.” I huff out a laugh, remembering the sheer awe I felt walking onto that plane and then riding in a fancy car up to a massive house filled with beautiful, extravagant things. “I realized he lived a very different lifestyle than the one Mom and I had. He told me his real name once we were there, not the one he used when he picked me up. And he told me why he was hiding—or at least, a very sanitized version. He explained why it was so important to never tell anyone who he is or where he was. It wasn’t until I was sixteen or seventeen that I realized what he was…”

Even now, when I’m furious with him and terrified of what he’ll do when he gets ahold of me, I can’t bring myself to call him what he is—a mobster. A killer. A violent man capable of horrific things.

Luca nods slowly, running a hand across his stubbled jaw. “Because you’d been away at boarding schools?”

I nod, surprised he said anything given his silence thus far. “He did it for my safety, I think, because he worried having me with him would be just a way to get to him. He didn’t hide my name either because there was no reason to. I had no connection to him. As far as anyone was concerned, he was dead, and I was just some random girl.”

Coen pulls his hand off my thigh and tugs my arms from around my legs so he can twine his fingers with mine.

I stare at our connected hands.

How tightly he clutches mine.

It’s still hard to understand how this happened when only this morning, it seemed impossible, but Coen Hawke is back to being my rock, and he’s still trying to stop my spiral even when I’m telling them things that should make them all despise me even more.

He squeezes my hand. “So, what happened when you were sixteen?”

A shudder rolls through me, goosebumps pebbling on my arms as I clench my eyes closed against the vision that flashes before them.