Page 79 of Dangerous Deception

“Well, either way, I have time. I’m nearly at three months by my rough calculations, and I’m going to tell Caterina tomorrow so she can help me get to some checkups. I thought about doing it at the hospital, but I don’t want them to see me as weak.Become a board member and then leave in six months to have a baby?”

“That won’t be an issue,” my father replies. “But you won’t be telling Raffaele until you’re sure, correct?”

I nod and then shake my head. “Honestly?” It’s hard to keep a smile from my face. “Things have been going really well. He’s not at all like the man I thought he was. He’s so much more… human than he appears.”

“I wouldn’t be so sure,” my father replies, aggressively stabbing his pasta.

“You don’t know him like I do.” My stomach tightens faintly, and the next mouthful doesn’t sit as pleasantly. “He’s kind. And sweet. Attentive, too. He just buries it.”

“Don’t forget that he’s a dangerous person. A baby won’t change that.”

Instantly, the air changes. The warm, friendly dinner with my father suddenly feels like an interrogation about Raffaele. Where I want to find support, all I see is judgment.

Maybe it’s my fault. Maybe I should have involved my father more.

Then again, he did tell me to go and be a good little wife.

Setting down my fork, I wipe my lower lip with the napkin and force a smile. “You know, I’m actually really tired. It must be the pregnancy. You know how these things are.”

My father nods, but his attention is suddenly down on his phone.

Irritation buds inside me so I shove my chair back and stand. “I’m going home, Papà. I’m sorry. But the next time we do this, I’ll invite Raffaele and maybe you can see the side of him that I see.”

Clutching my purse to my side, I reach inside for my phone to contact Caterina, intent on asking her to meet me outside.

Just as I approach the door, it suddenly swings open and several of my father’s guards filter inside and purposefully block the door.

“Excuse me,” I say, making my annoyance clear in my tone.

“I’m sorry, Adelina.” My father is on his feet with his phone in his hand.

“What are you sorry for?”

He reaches me and gently takes my hand, smiling at me as if he’s proud and sad at the same time. “I can’t let you leave.”

Those words send a prickly shiver down my spine. “What are you talking about?”

“It will all make sense soon,” he says. “But you need to stay here. Then, you will finally be free from Raffaele.”

“Free?” I scoff softly. “Papà, I don’t want to be free. There’s nothing about him that I need to befreefrom.”

“You can drop the act,” he says, patting my hand even as I jerk it away from him. “You’ve played your part better than I ever could have expected, but Addie, my dear. It’s time for the final act.”

31

RAFFAELE

Asmothering silence fills the car as Vito and I drive through city streets thriving with nightlife oblivious to the danger surrounding them. A danger from the one thing that should be the least dangerous thing on the fucking planet.

The water from the reservoir.

So much of what we’ve learned today feels like the broken pieces of a pot jumbling around in a bag waiting to be put together.

Vito sits next to me in the passenger seat, tapping his fingers furiously against his thigh. Just as I’m about to ask him what he’s thinking, he speaks.

“So, Pascal has been paying off doctors to forge death certificates and paying government officials to squash down any attempts by the public to question the quality of water coming from the reservoir.” He clicks his tongue behind his teeth. “A list which includes Lucia, Adelina’s mother, and… Serena.”

Out of the corner of my eye, I catch him looking at me, but I don’t speak. I can’t. Serena being on that list doesn’t make sense because she died from cancer. That’s what they told me. Shegot sick. She got cancer and she died. There’s no way she was poisoned.

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