Chapter 69

Layla

I stared at Aldo from across his desk. Anger coursed through me in a hot, heady wave, making my heart beat too fast, my hands shake with adrenaline.

We both breathed too heavily.

All the passion that burned me from the inside out reflected in his own sparking eyes, the tight set of his jaw, the clench of his fists atop the desk.

But before I could gather my wits enough to formulate a response, someone knocked on the office door.

I spun.

“Come in,” said Aldo, instantly cool, calm, and collected like a Mafia don should be. I hated him for that, in this moment. How easily he held his composure!

The door nudged open, and Carlo slid through. “I assume I’m interrupting?”

“Yes,” I snarled, as Aldo replied, “Not at all. He’s here?”

“Who?” I spun back to Aldo, but he’d redonned that expressionless facade once again.

But neither man needed to answer. Carlo stepped aside, and a third man strode into the room behind him. A very, very familiar man—both because I’d saved him from certain death on a hospital operating table, and because he bore nearly an identical face to the man at the desk beside me.

Ethan Smith smiled tightly as he entered.

“You didn’t,” I breathed, and all the anger in me hardened to cold, numbing shock.

Aldo slid out from behind his desk to approach Ethan, his hand extended. “Thank you for coming, Mr. Smith.”

I could only stare in shock as Ethan accepted the handshake. “Of course. Anything for Layla.”

“She’s going to tell you what you need to know.” Aldo leaned back against his desk, the picture of casual innocence, like maybe they were having a simple business chat over coffee. “And you can help to ensure she’s safe—”

“Are you kidding me?” I finally found my words, in a harsh, disbelieving grate of sound. “So that whole discussion … You weren’t asking me. You were preparing me, because he was already on his way here?”

Aldo straightened, his expression hardening. “Ethan, tell her. Tell her witness protection is the best option.”

Ethan’s gaze flicked from Aldo to me, uncertain. Maybe uncomfortable. As he should be. “She didn’t agree to this?”

“It’s the only way to ensure she and Eli are out of harm’s way.” Aldo cocked his head. “Do you disagree?”

Ethan shifted from one foot to the other, and his eyes flicked between us again. I almost felt bad for him— “He’s right, Layla. Nobody can ensure your safety as long as you stay here.”

I felt like the ground had fallen out from under me. Ethan had always been so level-headed. So respectful in a way Aldo never had been. Such a welcome contrast to Aldo’s alpha male control.

“You can’t be serious,” I said, my voice little more than a whisper.

Ethan’s expression softened. “I know it’s not what you want, Layla. But they’re getting more aggressive. If you stay, it’s only a matter of time before they try again.”

“I can’t just disappear.” I shook my head, and the anger in me was turning to something else, something fluttery and panicked. “Eli can’t grow up hiding from the world. That’s not living.”

“But he’d be alive,” Aldo said, and his voice had changed, too. He was pleading with me. Begging, maybe. “Can’t you see that? What would happen to either of us if something happened to him?”

The words choked out my argument. Was he right? Was I the one being selfish, keeping us here? Eli was only eight; maybe a much better life awaited him in some faroff corner of the world—and here I was, fighting to prevent him from having it.

Maybe I was the villain in this room.

“Mommy?” The small voice cracked the sudden silence that had fallen over the room. All four of us turned toward the doorway, where a boy with tousled blond hair stood hugging his teddy bear.

My heart seized in my chest. “Eli. What are you doing awake?”

“Are we leaving?” Eli asked in that same small voice. His blue eyes were too big, too wide. Fearful, in a way I hadn’t seen them before—not through all the past adventures of our last harrowing months.

My throat tightened, and I crossed the room to stand by his side. I crouched down beside him so I could meet his eyes. “No, baby. We’re not going anywhere right now?”

He studied my face, and then his gaze shifted past me. To Aldo. “Promise me?”

So it was my turn to face Aldo. It wasn’t me Eli was asking for a promise. I’d given him so many over the course of his short life, but this wasn’t one I could.

We both stared Aldo down, our matching blue eyes boring into him, so even his infallible mask cracked. He shifted uncomfortably against the desk. “Eli … We’re figuring some things out right now, your mother and I.”

I managed to hold in my derisive snort of disbelief. The man was a good liar, I’d give him that. He could sell a tall tale to a tree.

“I think it’s time for you to go back to bed.” I turned back to Eli to scoop him into my arms, plant a kiss to his forehead. “Uncle Carlo will take you back to your room, okay?”

I tilted my gaze towards the aforementioned man, beseeching. Of course, he nodded, offered a tight smile. Carlo had always been so good to us.

I should tell him that, someday. Sooner rather than later, it seemed.

“Thank you, Carlo.” I released Eli into Carlo’s care, and the two males slipped back through the door and into the hall.

Leaving me, Aldo, and Ethan once more.

I didn’t know what to say, didn’t have words. Eli had finally gotten his father, is real true father, and now … we were supposed to just leave him again? Forever?

“You see what this life is doing to him?” Aldo asked, voice soft now. Comforting. Like safety and home. “He’s scared.”

“He’s scared of being alone,” I corrected, because Aldo might have been a good father, but I’d been Eli’s mother for far longer. “He’s scared that he’s finally found his father, and now you’re going to send him away. You’re scared of losing us? We’re just as scared to lose you.”

“I know.” Aldo’s shoulders slumped, like the fight had drained right out of him. “But I don’t know what else to do. How else to keep you safe.”

On the other side of the desk, Ethan stood stiffly, his face softened by sympathy. If anyone could see both sides, it would be him.

“Ethan,” I started, hesitant. “Is there any way we could, I don’t know … Visit? I mean, if we joined witness protection.”

Ethan grimaced. “That’s the thing about witness protection … it only works if it’s absolute.”

My heart tumbled down towards my feet. But I made my decision, just like that. No further argument. “Witness protection is not an option, then.”

“Layla …” Aldo said, and that begging tone had returned to his voice. “Please.”

“Aldo.” This time, it was Ethan who spoke, his voice soft but firm, leaving no room for argument. “This is Layla’s choice. If she doesn’t want to be part of the program, there’s nothing I can do. You can’t force her.”

My eyes found Aldo’s again, and I stepped towards him. Like a ship being carried along on a forceful current, a swimmer caught in a rip tide. “Fight for us, Aldo,” I said, putting the force of all my will behind each word. “Fight for us, or you will lose us, whether you send us away or not.”

The weight of those words hung heavy in the prevailing silence.

My phone chose that moment to shatter it with a muted buzz against my thigh. I wrestled the vibrating device from my pocket, my brows knitting at the unfamiliar number flashing across the screen.

I pressed the speaker against my ear. “This is Layla.”

“Layla Bennett?” The voice on the other end of the line was calm. Almost too calm. “I have information about your past. Information you’ll want to hear.”