I didn’t like sending Noemi upstairs by herself, but every ounce of intuition I possessed was prickling at the sight of Mia Genovese. She was practically vibrating with nervous energy. Something was up, and it wasn’t simply a case of a guilty conscience.
I steeled myself for whatever she had to say and walked to her. “Mia, this is a surprise.”
Her smile was kind, but the apology creasing the corners of her eyes had my attention. “Conner, I’m so sorry to show up like this, but I need to talk to you about something. Something important that you need to know.” She clutched her phone in her hand as though it had the power to transport her away from the remorse eating at her.
“Let’s have a seat.” I reluctantly led us to an unoccupied sitting area. Residents passed through the lobby periodically, but our conversation wouldn’t be overheard. I kept my posture as relaxed as I could and allowed her to say what she’d come to say.
She sat perched on the edge of her seat, eyes dancing between me and her phone. “I know it seems strange for me to come here. There’s never exactly a good time for a conversation like this, but it’s been eating me up inside.”
“Okay, you have my attention.”
She sucked in a gulp of air as if to fortify herself. “I don’t imagine you know much about the circumstances of your adoption.”
“Just that you were sixteen and unable to care for me,” I offered without judgment.
“My family was very devout, you see. I volunteered at our church when I wasn’t at school. One summer, our youth director asked if some of us older kids would be willing to help out a sister church with their vacation bible school. They’d had an unexpectedly large enrollment of little ones and needed a few extra hands for a two-week day camp. Of course, I was happy to volunteer.” She paused, the fondness of a treasured memory relaxing her features. “The church was St. Patrick’s, and it’s where I met your father.”
If I stilled any further, I might have been mistaken for dead.
St. Patrick’s was the church where I’d been taken as a newborn. The church where my adoptive parents were members. Mia Genovese was going to tell me who my father was, and something about that terrified her.
“We didn’t know each other long. He was so charming, though, that I fell hard and fast. I was so naïve at that age that I didn’t think I could possibly get pregnant before I was married. My parents were so conservative and proper that they never talked to me about sex. I was a full six months along with you before my mother figured out my condition. I’d been clueless. I was terrified, so I did exactly as they told me.
“I didn’t leave our house for the next three months. Not until the day after you were born when I snuck out and took you to the church along with my grandmother’s rosary. My parents had made arrangements with a non-secular adoption agency, not wanting to work with any Catholic services that might leak information into our community about how I’d shamed them. I felt so powerless, but the one thing I could do for you was get you to that church where I knew you at least had some family.”
I could have stopped her right then and there—could have told her I didn’t want to know and to leave it in the past—but the words wouldn’t come. I sat in rapt silence, watching the train wreck before me unfold.
A tear trickled down her cheek.
“When I found out who you’d become, you couldn’t imagine how happy I was for you. To know you hadn’t been alone.” She wiped at the tear, her words growing shaky. “I thought we’d meet, you and I, and then I could tell your father about you. He had a family, you see, so I wanted to go about it carefully, but then …” Her words caught on a sob, but she continued as though the avalanche of truth was now too powerful to hold back. “How could I have ever known that the same night … the same night we had our dinner …” She squeezed her eyes shut, grief overtaking her.
The same night we had our dinner. That was all she had to say, and I knew.
“Uncle Brody,” I breathed.
Mia lifted her glassy eyes to mine and gave a single sorrowful nod.
My uncle Brody had been my biological father this whole time, and we’d never known. He never knew, and now he never would.
The harshness of reality slammed into me, stealing the air from my lungs.
I thought I’d been okay with how my life had unfolded. With the adoption and my family. I’d thought nothing Mia could say would have changed the past, but I’d been wrong. The truth changed everything.
“I’m so sorry, Conner,” Mia whispered. “I had no way to find you before. I would have told you if I’d known how close you already were. I would have wanted you to know. These last two weeks have been agonizing to know how everything unfolded. It was so unfair. I didn’t want to keep the truth from you for a minute longer.”
“It’s not your fault,” I murmured distractedly, surprised to realize I believed what I said. I didn’t blame her for any of it. Her parents, perhaps, but more than anyone, my ire was zeroed in on the group of people who had taken my father from me.
The fucking Albanians.
They’d stolen my chance to ever connect with Brody Byrne as father and son. And for what? A pathetic attempt at intimidation? I’d show them intimidation. I’d burn their entire organization to the ground.
Fury took up arms with a vengeance and rattled the bars of my control.
A volcano of hate erupted inside me, spewing rivers of molten rage through my veins.
I had to get out of there. I had to find an outlet for the vicious monster seething inside me before he aimed his bloodlust at an innocent.
“Thank you for sharing this, Mia.” I stood, my movements stiff and uncoordinated. “I know it wasn’t easy to come here, and you don’t have to feel guilty about anything. The adoption. Brody. None of it was your fault.” I managed to force my gaze to hers in an attempt to project my sincerity, then gave her a hug. The first hug we’d ever shared. She’d been through just as much turmoil as I had, if not more. I had no desire to magnify her pain. She wasn’t the one who deserved to suffer.
“Thank you for listening,” she said in a quivering voice as she pulled away, a small smile on her thin lips. “I won’t bother you anymore.”
“It’s not a bother, Mia. Truly. All of this has been a lot to process, but you’re never a bother.”
More tears pooled in her eyes before she smiled and retreated to the doors.
Opening my phone, I dialed Bishop.
“Hey, man. I—”
I cut him off before he could say another word. “You got anything on that license plate yet?” Each clipped word was seething with aggression.
“Uh, yeah. I have an address, but—”
“Give it to me.”
Bishop’s voice sobered. “You need backup? I don’t have any other intel on these guys yet. I’m not sure it’s a good idea to—”
“Address,” I ground out with enough savagery to silence him, then hung up the second I had what I needed.
Noemi was waiting for me in the living room when I got upstairs. I walked right past her toward the bedroom.
“I have to go out,” I told her when she jumped up to follow. “You need to stay here.”
My lethal intensity magnified her worry.
“What did Mia say?” she asked, her voice small as though she was scared to ask.
“Nothing I want to talk about right now. I have something I have to do.” In the master closet, I took out my unregistered handguns from their hidden compartments and slipped on my chest holster.
“Is this about my dad? You aren’t going to confront him, are you?”
I wasn’t sure what had given her that idea, but I didn’t have the capacity to discuss it further. “I already did that before the wedding,” I said distractedly as I checked the chamber of each weapon and put extra clips in my pockets.
“What? You confronted him about hurting me?”
I grabbed a jacket bulky enough to cover my weapons, ignoring her questions.
“Conner,” Noemi called more forcefully. “Don’t leave here without telling me what’s going on.”
I whipped around to face her, unable to leash the feral nature of my anger. “You going to tell me why things changed with your father? Why you need a burner phone to talk to your brother, or why the fuck you didn’t speak for six goddamn months?” I knew there was more she wasn’t telling me. I would have been fine to let it sit on the back burner had she not pressed me, but I didn’t have the time or patience for bullshit.
Noemi’s lips clamped shut, a door slamming behind her wide green eyes.
Seeing her shut me out like that pissed me off even more, despite the fact that it was my own damn fault, yet I still couldn’t stop myself. My emotions had taken over.
“Didn’t think so,” I bit out, walking past her and storming from the apartment.
