“You won’t.”
“You can’t promise me that.” I tuck my head against his chest.
“No, I can’t.”
We have both lost so much. We know reality is not always sunshine and roses.
“We need to speak to your father.” Tobias’s hand tightens around me, preventing me from moving away. Instead, I tip my head up to look at him. “We need to know why he lied to you.”
“Maybe it wasn’t a lie? Maybe he thought it—”
“No, Skye. He knew. He was the policeman on duty that day, and he adopted you. There is more to this story than we know.”
I nod my head in agreement.
“It’s time we find out everything.” He bends his head and places a kiss on my mouth. Silencing any objections.
He’s right.
I spent my life fearing the dark, but it’s time I swing the door open and see everything. It’s time the past is brought out into the light. Only then can we move on. That’s when we will see the truth.
44
Tobias
Everybody is here.
All of us sit around a large table as if we are about to play poker. But we aren’t. We are not at Cyrus’s house.
This is not a Friday night, and the hundred-thousand-dollar buy-in is not on the table. It’s not a friendly game with zero money. No, this is something quite the opposite, and unfortunately, it keeps happening. It’s not easy to leave the underworld, and it’s even more difficult to leave when you have unfinished business.
“What’s the plan?” Lorenzo asks before he lifts his scotch to his mouth, and I look over at where he sits. He’s beside Matteo, who’s his cousin and former boss. So much for retiring. It’s not just him who has come out from his self-proclaimed exile from this life. Alaric Prince is also at the table, as is Cristian, who took over for Alaric when he retired from arms dealing.
On the far side are Cyrus and Trent.
“We need to lure Felix out of hiding.” It’s Trent who speaks, and everyone in the room agrees.
“It’s not that easy.” All eyes turn to Cyrus. “From what I’ve heard, no one has seen him since the attack. Jax, anything to add?” Jaxson Price is not physically here, but his voice rings through the air via the state-of-the-art surveillance system that Jaxson and his security company installed.
Jaxson has been tasked with finding Felix, which means he probably already has. “He hasn’t been seen, but that doesn’t mean we don’t know where he is,” he says.
“Where is he, then, Jax?” I lift my own glass and take a swig.
“His building.” With the surround sound in the room, Jax’s voice booms through the air.
“His apartment building?”
“Yep.”
“Ballsy.” Placing my glass down. “He’s not even pretending to hide.”
“Nope. According to his staff, he has a cold, but he’s been conducting business from home. He’s even been Zooming about a new mall he wants to build.”
“Are you fucking kidding?” This pisses me the fuck off.
“Nope.” And I can tell by Jaxson’s voice that he’s serious.
“I’m here—” I begin before Lorenzo cuts me off.
“Getting laid,” Lorenzo jokes, and I narrow my eyes at him.
“Careful.” My voice rings through the air with a clear warning.
Lorenzo holds his hands up in apology. “My bad.” He looks at me and cocks his head. “Speaking of that, care to explain how you went from annoying your lawyer to—”
“Lorenzo,” I warn.
“Not annoying her.”
“How much do you know about my past?” I say, and that’s when I hear the sound of soft footsteps.
“Our past,” Skye cuts in, walking across the room and taking the seat next to me.
“Not a hell of a lot,” Cyrus’s rough voice answers.
“Because the asshole keeps us all in the dark.” Lorenzo has always given me shit for being closed off, so it’s no surprise when he says this. “The time for silence is over. Tell us everything.”
I let out a long sigh and feel Skye’s hand under the table, holding my hand.
“This story is twenty years in the making. Some pieces are missing.” I leave out the little details not relevant to the story. I don’t tell them it was my birthday. Nor do I mention Skye’s being the same day. “My father and I had just moved to Reddington a few months earlier. The cartel sent my father to distribute cocaine through New York. The plan was to create a foothold through the Tri-State and Upstate areas. Reddington’s proximity to both gives him not only access to the docks but also the safety of hiding under the radar in a small town.”
Skye squeezes my hand.
“The plan wasn’t well thought out; there was already a distribution pipeline. A war started. Far enough from town that it didn’t touch it, but we had enemies, and the enemy wanted to make an example of us for the cartel.
There was a mom-and-pop diner in the town, one that was famous for its shakes. It’s all I wanted, and, well, there was a hit. It was a massacre. My father was killed, and Skye’s parents were caught in the crossfire.”
“Felix?” Cyrus leans forward, and I nod at him.
“Yeah.”
“This vendetta you’ve had for him stems from this?” From here, I can practically see the wheels turning in Cyrus’s brain. His face is stern, jaw locked.
“Yes.”
“And does he know?” Cyrus looks to be working out all the loose ends in his head, but until I tell him everything, there will still be pieces of the puzzle he won’t be able to connect.
“No.”
Cyrus lifts his brow.
“My father’s name was Tobias. I changed my name to his after he died and changed my last name to my uncle’s.”
“Felix thinks he’s fighting over control for New York, not some past blood on his hands?”
“Yes.”
“And you?”
“I have been looking for confirmation that it was him.”
“And did you find that?”
“On paper, no one has ever been able to put the gun in his hand. He wasn’t there. He didn’t go down for the crime. No one who was captured afterward could ever say that Felix was involved. The local drug runners were all rounded up and arrested. It was the biggest drug bust and takedown in New York’s history.”
Lorenzo nods. “It was all over the papers. It made careers. I didn’t realize it was you. I knew you were a Kosta, but I assumed you were the son of George Kosta. He was a legend.”
“George was my uncle. My mother’s sister’s husband. He raised me.”
“How did you keep this from us?” I can tell by his tone that Cyrus is pissed.
“Not easily.”
“And you never fucking thought we should know?” He stands from the table, his chair flipping over. I get it. We have gone to war with each other. Keeping this from them is a huge breach of trust.
“Cyrus.” He’s gone.
“Give him a minute,” Matteo says. “Listen, man, I get it. I know why you didn’t let us in, but see it from our point of view. We let you into our home. You met our kids.”