ng to n

t through the silence Luca's voice had left behind. Every man in th

his expression sharpened with interest, li

her fathe

distance from the man who'd just claimed her like a piece of furniture. "I don't know what arra

t worse. "Your father borrowed four million dollars from me eight months ago

the house. Take the c

er. "Your father's company is hollowed out - sold off in pieces to cover interest he

n her father.

eet her eyes. That

king back at Luca. "You said four mill

but close. Like he hadn't expected her to ask the right questio

cracked. Six million. The n

and pleading. "I was trying to save th

unhurried contempt of a man watching someone drow

ng to think past the roaring in her head. When she dropped

even. Just certainty, absolute and im

arly laughed. "

ry little patience for delay." He glanced at Antonio. "Your fathe

cuss. I'm not property,

kind of cold focus that made the room feel smaller. He took

er's debt is. You're simply how he chose to pay it." His

to step behind him without a word, and the f

nobody in t

at either of her parents, because if she opened her mouth a

-

t her - not like a man inspecting a purchase, but like he was solving som

e went downstairs for water and heard it: a low, broken sound coming from her fathe

f raw, gulping sobs she'd never once heard from him in twenty-four years. Antonio Moretti, who'd never sho

ught on something through the gap - the bottom drawer of his desk pulled open,

r, then slipped away before he could see her, heart poundi

etreated upstairs, she crept back down to the study. The drawer was stil

a. A much younger Antonio stood beside a woman Elena had never seen before in her life - dark-haired, laughing at

the photo

in her father's yo

e me, I

urred, a single question circling louder than

as Is