Page 94 of Thorns of Blood

I frowned. I had never heard that term. “You mean the kingpins? The Syndicate?”

He chuckled. “No, that’s not what I mean.”

“Tell me something nobody knows about you,” I finally said, tasting blood in my mouth. “Or I’ll kill you.”

A heartbeat passed as he watched me somberly.

With a cold determination on his face, he said, “If you share this with anyone and betray me, I will punish you.” I swallowed, nodding my agreement. “Two decades ago, Emory DiLustro’s mother and I were going to disappear together.” Something I couldn’t quite distinguish flashed across his expression. “Anyhow, I promised her that I’d watch over her daughter. I failed eight years ago; I won’t today. I’m getting you and this kid out of here.”

“That’s not much of a secret.” I frowned. “Besides, Gio DiLustro, her husband, would have come after you.”

“DiLustro would have failed, because nobody can come after The Syndicator.” He underestimated Gio’s obsessive, albeit crazy personality. state. That man hated losing anything,especially women. “Now you know my secret, Liana Volkov. Betray me and?—”

He didn’t have to finish his sentence.

“I won’t,” I vowed. “But my daughter?—”

His tone was soft when he spoke next. “She’s not yours, Liana.”

“She’smydaughter,” I hissed, not bothering to correct him about my name again. “Mine.”

He tilted his head, the pitying look in his eyes telling me he knew everything. She wasn’t mine, at least not for long. Not without a new liver. He knew it. I refused to acknowledge it.

“With Gio alive, it’s safer that Amara is with you,” he finally said, then added, “For now.”

No, not for now. Forever.

But I kept those words to myself and instead, ignoring the pain in my body, I straightened my back and pinned him with a stare. “How can I be sure this isn’t just another one of Perez’s twisted games that you’re playing?”

“I guess you can’t be.”

I closed my eyes, Amara’s vulnerable state heavy on my mind. I didn’t have a choice but to trust this man, if for nothing else but her survival.

With that thought, I focused on the objective: getting Amara somewhere safe.

“We need to go,” I finally said, and for the next two hours, Amara and I sat in the back of an old army Jeep, our teeth rattling with every bump on the dirt road. Two hours of silence, Amara fast asleep while I kept a watchful eye on Kian Cortes.

“Where are you taking us?”

“I have a remote safehouse in Venezuela.”

I stiffened. “Y-you… are you taking us back to Santiago?”

No way was I going back to that monster. He’d be no better than Perez and just as detrimental to Amara’s life.

“I’m not,” he answered, parking the Jeep, then coming around to open the door. I didn’t dare to look around, fearful that my supposed good luck was about to come to an end. All my attention was on the man who got my daughter and me out of the hellhole in which we were destined to die.

“Why did you stop?”

“We’re going to check in to the hotel on the other side of this vineyard.”

“Why?”

“So you and the kid can get cleaned up while we wait for new documents for both of you. You’re going to start a new life in Venezuela, hiding in plain sight.”

I studied our surroundings. “Where are we?”

“Still a day or two away from our destination.”