Page 89 of Surprise Twins for the Mafia Prince
My grip tightens on the phone. I know that voice.
It doesn’t matter that it’s been fifteen years. It doesn’t matter that he’s dead.
That I mourned him. That I built my entire adult life around the crater his absence left behind.
I know exactly who I’m talking to.
“Dad?”
34
PAIGE
No.It can’t be true. I must be mistaken.
But then he chuckles, and I swear I’m transported back in time. That sound—warm and rough around the edges, like sandpaper wrapped in velvet—used to be as familiar to me as my own name. It was the soundtrack of bedtime stories and birthday surprises. The backdrop to a childhood that ended too soon.
“I knew you wouldn’t forget me,” he says.
Forget him?How could I possibly forget the man whose absence shaped everything? The ghost I’ve been chasing through every decision, every relationship, every high and low?
“How...where...I don’t understand...” My words come out fragmented, broken things stumbling over each other.
“I know, and I’m sorry, princess. I hate that you’ve believed me dead all this time. The truth is that I’ve been in hiding.”
My brain slows, like it’s wading through molasses. I can’t comprehend what he’s telling me or the fact that I’m having aconversation with my father at all. The cognitive dissonance is making my temples throb.
He’s dead.
He’s been dead for fifteen years.
That’s not just grief. It’s a fact. It’s the foundation everything else was built on. I was the girl whose father was murdered by the Andrettis. I wore that like a second skin.
I nurtured that hatred, fed it scraps of my soul until it grew large enough to consume everything else.
If he’s alive…then who am I? What has my lifemeant?
“Paige, are you there?”
Oh, God.The sound of his voice raises goosebumps on my arms, as if I’m speaking to an actual ghost.
“I...” I clear my throat. It’s too bad I can’t clear my mind so easily. “Yeah. I’m here.”
“Do you understand what I’m saying?”
Not even a little.My thoughts are a tangle of thorns.
“I had to go into hiding. The Andrettis were after me. They were planning to kill me.”
A thousand questions race forward, all demanding answers. But before I can speak, his tone changes—urgent now, taut with fear.
“Listen, Paige. I’ve stayed away to keep you safe, but I needed to contact you now because you’re in danger.”
My eyes flick toward the window. It’s instinct, but I half-expect to see masked men storming the front lawn.
Instead, sunlight glints off the grass, and across the street, my neighbor is crouched in her garden, tugging weeds from the soil—completely unaware that my world is imploding in real time.
Everything looks normal. Ordinary.
