nudged her head, gasping like a man without a cock when I realize who she’s referencing. The focus is no longer on Rimi’s debunked crew. It has shifted to my father.
“Smi—”
“Cross-referencing any connection between Megan’s mother and your father now.” He sounds as shocked as me. I’m stunned, truly and wholly scandalized. My father fucked around long before my mother died, but that doesn’t mean what I think it does, does it? Megan can’t be my sister—surely.
“Furthermore…” Megan waits for my eyes to return to her flaming-with-anger face before she continues, “Rimi doesn’t live on a farm.” She talks about him as if he isn’t dead. “He has a big house my mother would have loved. It has hundreds of rooms, a picture theater, and a special hospital in the basement. That’s where the ladies have their babies. Rimi said I could have my baby there if I want.” My thudding heart almost drowns out her next lot of words. “I can prove I had my own room. His house is close to here.” She peers around like she’s gathering her bearings. “Well, it was closer to the airport than here. Can we go back there?”
“Jesus fucking Christ,” Smith murmurs out loud, matching my sentiments to a T. “Show her the photos I sent to your phone.”
With my mind shut down, autopilot mode kicks in. I dig my phone out of my pocket, then fire it up. My thumb hovers over the message app when Megan grunts, “That’s her, the woman who lives with Rimi. How did you get her photograph?” The absolute disdain hardening her features softens when she spots Fien on my screensaver. “Aww, now it makes sense. I told you her daughter is cute. I’d put her photo on my phone too… if I had one.”
My itch to kill turns catastrophic when the final piece of the puzzle slots into place. My screensaver is an image of Fien I snapped the first time I saw her in the flesh. Because Audrey clutched my hand most of the drive from Rimi’s compound to India’s house, Fien isn’t cradled in Roxanne’s arms. She’s being held by India.
It doesn’t take me even a second to do the math. India is in every scene even more than Roxanne. She has been in every single frame—even the ones before Fien was conceived. That fucking bitch orchestrated my daughter’s captivity because I chose her roommate over her, and I’m going to kill her for it.
36
Roxanne
I request the driver of my cab to pull over two houses back from India’s country estate. Even with my gut warning me that this is a bad idea, I can’t help but test the strength of the boundaries Dimitri lodged between us.
He could have let me leave thinking he didn’t care about me. He could have walked away without telling me our baby meant something to him. He didn’t.
That deserves recognition.
That deserves acknowledgment.
“Are you sure you’re okay?” asks the driver when my hunt for bills in the bottom of my clutch has me grunting in pain. “You don’t look real good.”
Up until twenty minutes ago, I didn’t know a broken heart could cause physical pain. I’m in as much pain now as I was when Maestro punched me in the stomach. It has me sweating up a storm and has my cab driver convinced I’m up to no good.
He was already suspicious when I said I would have to direct him to my location by taking a detour past a club that looks as shady as hell when it’s minus its ritzy guests.
“Perhaps I could take you to the hospital?”
I lock my eyes with the kind pair glancing at me in the rearview mirror. “I’m fine. I think I ate something bad. It will pass soon.” I hope.
He doesn’t believe me, but I’m beyond caring.
After tossing a bundle of bills over the seat, I crank open my door and peel out of the cab. It’s almost winter, so the chills racking my body should be from the cold. Regretfully, they aren’t. I’m both burning up and shuddering like I am in an ice bath.
The unusual duo hitting me doesn’t slow me down, though. Once I’ve ensured the cab driver has left, I cross the road, then head toward the back entrance I spotted Rocco sneaking out of many times the past week.
The secret passage could be lit up with surveillance, but I’m okay with that if it’s being viewed by the man I’m endeavoring to spark a reaction