Page 72 of The Mafia's Broken Vows

To my surprise, Dante only scoffs. “Of course, he’d tell you that. It’s not true, though. No one in Chicago would be stupid enough to let history repeat itself. And trying to kill another Irish woman on our turf would be doing just that.”

My brow furrows in confusion as my heart starts to pound. I have about fifty follow-up questions, but one stands out like a beacon.

“What do you mean, history repeating itself?”

Dante runs a hand through his hair, disheveling it further, then turns to me. “It’s not pretty, tesoro.“ His gray eyes search mine, seeking permission to tell me something I might find disturbing.

“Tell me,” I plead, needing him to cement the puzzle already falling into place in my head.

“Some time ago,” he begins, his voice tight, “Naomi Ritter, an Irish woman, and her child were brutally murdered on Brackendown Street in downtown Chicago. The son of a bitch emptied a whole magazine of bullets into them while they were asleep in bed.”

Dante glances at me, no doubt checking that I’m not going green. “Naomi seemed like a simple bookstore owner, but it came to light after she died that she had hidden connections to the Boston Mob—the Irish version of the mafia,” Dante clarifies for me.

My mother had connections to the Irish mafia? Through who?

Something tells me I already know, but I shove that thought to the same dark place I’ve kept all the questions my afternoon with Benjamin O’Shea roused in my mind.

Dante continues. “It sparked off the worst mafia war in the Outfit’s history. The Irish were screaming for blood and revenge. They haven’t forgotten to this day. I doubt they ever will. No one keeps a grudge like them, and that was a massive blow to their heart.”

Goosebumps rise on my arms despite the warmth of the room. “Dante, Naomi Ritter’s murder, was it eighteen years ago?”

Dante’s eyes whip to mine. “Yes. Did your father tell you about it?”

“He’s not my father.”

“What?”

I nod, a sob catching in my throat. “I never told you this, but he’s my uncle. He adopted me when I was five. He made me believe he was my father’s brother, but he’s really my mother’s brother. He lied to me, Dante. My whole life has been a lie.”

“Okay.” Dante has gone as still as a stone now. “What else did Benjamin O’Shea tell you?”

The words pour out of me in a torrent. “He said that I wasn’t born in Boston. That this,” I trace the line between my breasts, “wasn’t the only injury I sustained as a result of a gunshot.”

I point to my right hip. “I didn’t shatter my hip in an accident, and I didn’t tear up my back falling on broken glass.” I take a deep breath and continue. “Dante. I was deliberately shot six times when I was five years old.”

“Holy mother of fuck!” Dante’s face, already drained of color, twitches with shock.

“It was you.”

Chapter Twenty-Three

Dante

The Irish Mob lied.

They have been lying for two decades.

My throat constricts, a vise grip of understanding tightening with each passing second. Addy was the child from eighteen years ago.

The little girl survived the assassination that sparked a decade-long war.

Benjamin O’Shea might have saved her life, but the son-of-a-bitch didn’t raise Addy—the daughter of his enemy—out of the goodness of his heart. He took her, kept her, and rewrote her entire history.

Addy is not his daughter. She’s his hostage. A deadly bargaining chip for future use.

I hold Addy tight to me, murmuring soothing words into her ear as I rein in the shock, awe, and rage roiling in me.

My fingers trace the three parallel scars on her back, scars I now recognize for what they truly are: gunshot wounds, cleverly disguised as glass lacerations. Each line tells a story, one that has fascinated me from the start, but now consumes my every thought.

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