Chapter 4

Nina's video blew up. Millions of views.

Strangers online turned into keyboard crusaders, each one sure they were on the side of justice.

[Case solved. The girl's parents are mafia, high-ranking members of the Marlow Family.]

[Oh my God, seriously? The Marlows are trafficking kids now? What is this, the 1800s?]

[Share this everywhere! Make the feds investigate the Marlow Family!]

The whole thing was sliding out of control.

Marlow came at once, men in tow.

The moment Nina saw the Don, she threw herself at him in tears, pointing at me. "Mommy admitted it herself! She stole me! Sir, give her the Family's justice, quick!"

Her head was buried against him, but she'd tilted it just enough to watch me out of the corner of her eye.

I saw the malice and triumph there, clear as day.

The kind of triumph that fed on someone else's humiliation.

Marlow pushed her off.

His eyes were vulture-cold, his voice colder. "It's gone too far now. You're both confined to your home, that's decided. The public's watching, the feds are about to come down on the Family, and the child has to be dealt with."

Confusion crossed Nina's face.

She hadn't gotten the verdict she wanted, so she put on her innocent face. "Sir, weren't you going to shoot Mommy?"

Marlow looked at her with a cold smile. "Child, family unity is our creed... the only ones I deal with are traitors!"

The last words came out almost as a snarl.

Nina froze, startled.

But she was too young to catch what he really meant.

I apologized to the Don, full of guilt.

Vincent and I had married in from outside. We'd clawed our way to where we were only because the Don had carried us the whole way. He'd even promised that if we handled certain business right, he'd back us in starting a Family of our own.

I owed him an answer for this.

I fixed my eyes on Nina's. "Nina, Daddy told you plainly this afternoon. That was just something I said in anger. It doesn't count."

"So why did you post another video?"

Nina turned her head away, lips pressed into a hard line, refusing to admit a thing.

I warned her, slow and pointed. "You can post one more video right now and tell everyone you were just throwing a tantrum at me. Otherwise..."

I paused, and laid each word down. "If the FBI shows up and opens that safe, you'll be sorry."

Nina's eyes darted, like she was weighing it.

Then she huffed, turned back, and shouted at me, all defiance. "Why do you boss me around every day? Scare me every day? I'm going to punish you!"

"Then you'll behave. Then Mommy will be honest, just like me."

A voice, warped with fury, suddenly went off in the room.

"Fine! This is what you chose, isn't it?! Then don't you dare regret what comes next!"

Vincent ground out, "I'll explain all of it to everyone."

He led them into the bedroom and had the safe open in seconds.

Inside was a sealed box.

I sighed. "Nina, if the proof shows you really aren't our daughter, will you go back to your real parents?"

Nina's eyes flicked, and she answered without a thought.

"Of course!"

"Every time I tell the truth, Mommy gets upset. I hate a fake mommy like you!"

I only realized I'd bitten through my lip when the blood dripped down.

I drew a deep breath. "I'll open the box, Nina. But on one condition. You sign a statement for me first."

"It says you refuse, absolutely, to let us keep raising you. That you insist on going back to your real parents. It'll go out to every Family boss on the East Coast."

Nina didn't know what a statement was, but she knew me.

She saw I didn't want the box opened, so she agreed on the spot.

She knew me. She understood me.

And all of that understanding had become a weapon to hurt me with.

When I watched her scrawl her name across the statement and press her thumbprint to it, the last bit of tenderness in me went out.

I keyed in Nina's birthday and opened the box.

Two documents lay inside.

One was the official adoption paperwork.

The other was the file on her real parents.

Marlow checked the adoption papers first, then turned to the second file.

The next second his pupils shrank, and he read it over and over.

He looked up at me, stunned. "This girl's birth parents... it's them?!"

Vincent and I nodded, guilt-ridden. "We're sorry, Don. We let our mercy override reason, and it's cost the Family this much in standing!"

Marlow sighed. "Let it go. It's done. You only acted by our family’s code. We don't harm the innocent."

Then he turned a pitying look on Nina.

The others crowded in, curious, to see the file for themselves.

A moment later, every one of them was looking at Nina with something complicated in their eyes.

Vincent looked at me and sighed. "It's your call, love."

Everyone waited on my decision.

I looked at Nina's signature and thumbprint on the statement and said, calmly, "The statement's signed. I'll notify her birth parents to come take her back."

"Every Family on the East Coast has already been told. There's no taking it back!"

I said to Nina, flatly, "Nina, from this moment, you are nothing to me."

Nina blinked, looked at Vincent and me, then at Marlow.

It took a long moment before it all seemed to sink in.

All at once, the color drained from her face.