“You walked into my wedding with proof my father sold my brother, but this was too hard?”
Dante flinched.
My father seized the opening.
“He is using you, Serena. The Romanos killed your mother, and now he wants her company.”
Dante did not deny it fast enough.
I looked at him.
“Is that true too?”
“No.”
“But there is something.”
His eyes held mine.
“Yes.”
My father’s phone rang.
He glanced at the screen and answered before any of us could move.
His face changed.
All the color drained out of it.
“What do you mean she’s gone?” he snapped.
Dante’s men shifted.
My father looked past me, suddenly not triumphant at all.
“Find her,” he hissed into the phone. “Find Nora before she reaches Serena.”
My heart slammed.
Nora Bellamy was alive.
And moving.
Dante grabbed my hand.
This time, he did not wait gently. This time, danger had arrived too close for manners.
We ran.
Behind us, my father shouted my name.
Ahead, the second Rolls-Royce peeled out of the shadows, doors already open.
I climbed in, breathless, soaked, half a bride and half a fugitive.
Dante got in after me and slammed the door.
The car shot forward.
For several seconds, neither of us spoke.
Then his phone buzzed.
He looked down.
I watched his face turn utterly still.
“What?” I demanded.
He handed me the phone.
A message glowed on the screen from an unknown number.
Serena, your mother did not die in that crash. She disappeared because she learned what you are. Come to the old Whitmore observatory before midnight. Trust no Romano. Trust no Crowe. Trust no father.
Below the message was a photograph.
My mother, alive, standing beside Nora Bellamy.
And between them was a little girl with my face.