Page 197 of The Enslaved Duet

Fuck me.

Why was my reproduction such an available tool of manipulation?

Mrs. White, Noel, and now my father had all schemed against me as if a baby was a tool and not a person.

I had only known about my pregnancy for a day, and still, the death of that baby haunted me. I couldn’t look at baby shoes without feeling an aching absence in my womb.

My father hadn’t killed that baby, but he’d put it in peril before it even stood a chance of survival.

I opened my eyes and stared into my father’s face so close to mine. He watched me with open, guileless eyes, offering his sincerity to me like a gift.

“I was trying to help,” he whispered after seeing the vivid pain in my expression.

He was only trying to help.

Hadn’t he always only been trying to help?

It was his excuse for gambling, for getting involved with the Camorra, for selling me to the highest bidder.

Well, the means did not justify any of the ends. Not to me. Not ever.

I pulled my hands from his and sat back, needing the space, hating that we were even breathing the same air.

Something spasmed across his face, a clenching and closing like an octopus poised to flee. “I’m in a better place now, Cosi. I have money, influence, that you couldn’t believe.”

“How?” I asked, both because he wanted me to and because I wanted to know where he was in life, how he could be here, and now, so that I could avoid him forevermore.

That slick smear of a smile again. “I moved to America when your mother and Elena did, just to keep an eye on things. Ended up hooking up with some old friends from my youth. Guy named Thomas ‘Gunner’ Coonan took me under his wing, joined me up to his successful enterprises.”

Of course. Everyone in New York knew who Kelly was; the most successful Irish crime boss since Coonan in the 70s.

“You joined the Irish mob.”

Seamus grinned from ear to ear, opening his palms in a gesture of smug nonchalance. “What can I say? I got a head for business, and they recognized greatness in me the way the Camorra couldn’t.”

“Dio mio, Dad,” I said, forgetting myself for a moment. “Do the Camorra know you changed sides?”

“I was never part of their outfit,” he argued. “Just beholden to it. ’S not a problem.”

I very much doubted that. The Irish and Italian mafia in New York werenotfriendly, and they never had been. Any excuse for conflict was flame to kerosene-soaked tinder.

“Why in the world would you practically kidnap me like this from an Italian held poker game then?” I demanded. “That’s just plain stupid.”

Or is it? His expression countered with the quirk of a red brow and twisted lips.

Oh.

I sighed, so exhausted by my own life, I thought I would faint from the strain. “You want to go to war with them.”

Seamus beamed at me, reaching out to pat me on the hand before I could pull away. “You always were such a smart girl. Taught you well, I did. Yes, things are escalating between the Camorra and the Cosa Nostra. It’s the perfect time to hit them while they’re down.”

“So again, you’re using me as a pawn.” The words were flat, two-dimensional and plastic, like fake currency in a children’s game.

Useless in the real world, but they still felt good to use.

His brow crinkled into a pleat like a checkmark, just like Elena’s and Giselle’s did. “Don’t be so dramatic. Two birds, one stone,carina. I’m multitasking.”

I couldn’t stop focusing on the hate growing inside me, poison like a weed, choking out all other thoughts and feelings until I felt consumed by it.