Page 69 of Mafia Don's Twisted Proposal
Mia makes an irritated sound in the back of her throat and finally stalks over, throwing herself onto the cushion furthest from me while muttering something about controlling assholes under her breath.
“Tell me what Dario was talking about.” Her hands are fisted on her thighs, her entire body radiating anger as she turns to face me. There’s nothing intimate about our positions, she’s trying to keep as much space between us as possible.
This talk is already a disaster.
I wish I had a drink in my hands, but that would just be a coward’s distraction from what I don’t want to face. Mia’s disappointment. Her pain. The moment she realizes exactly how deep my deception goes.
“There’s a family in Mexico,” I start. “The Cardenas family. They run one of the most powerful cartels in the western hemisphere, and they’re damn good at it. Just like my family, they’ve been running their organization for decades without significant challenge. They’re strong, ruthless with their enemies, and absolutely fucking terrifying when crossed.”
Mia stays quiet, but I can see her wondering where the hell I’m going with this. Her face gives nothing away, but her knuckles are white where her hands grip her thighs.
“This family has four sons, all in their late twenties and early thirties. Each one works for the cartel and could probably level a city block if they felt like it. But what no one knows—what even they don’t know—is that there was a fifth child born into this family.”
She’s holding her breath now, those wide brown eyes fixed on mine like she’s afraid to blink.
“A daughter. The youngest. Hidden away twenty-six years ago by a mother who loved her too much to let her grow up in that world.”
The silence stretches between us, thick and suffocating.
“That daughter is you, Mia. You’re Miguel Cardenas’s child. You’re cartel royalty, and you’ve been living a completely ordinary life while your real family runs one of the most dangerous organizations in the world.”
The words drain the color from her face. She catapults off the couch as if sitting still might kill her, pacing to the window and back like a caged animal.
“No. That’s not possible. My parents are lawyers. Boring, suburban lawyers who drive sensible cars and vacation in the same lake house every summer.”
“Baby, think about it.” I lean forward, desperate to make her understand. “You’ve always felt like you didn’t quite fit in with your family, right? You sensed this, Mia. Without knowing why, you always had a feeling you didn’t belong.”
“That doesn’t mean—” She stops, shaking her head violently. “It can’t be true. Are you saying I was adopted?”
I sigh and clasp my hands together, my elbows on my knees. “It’s more complicated than that. Your birth mother was raised in the cartel world. She’d seen the darkness, including how women were treated. Stifled, controlled, used as bargaining chips in arranged marriages. She didn’t want that life for her daughter. So she made an impossible choice. She gave you up to save you.”
Mia’s breath catches, and sudden vulnerability flickers across her face. “Did you know her?”
“No.”
“Then how do you know all this?”
My lip curls at the thought of the bastard who started this whole mess. “The doctor who delivered you. The man has a gambling problem and owed us a hefty sum. He moved to Vegas a few years after leaving Mexico. Maybe he was chasing a fresh start. Or maybe he was just chasing the cards. When he couldn’t pay, he knew he was fucked. You don’t stiff the Andrettis and live to tell about it. But when my men came to collect, he begged me to hear him out. Said he had information worth more than money.”
Her brow furrows. “Why would you care about some family in Mexico? Why would you care about me?”
Two very different questions, and I’m not ready to answer the second one yet.
“Your mother was terrified of you growing up in that world. She arranged for the family lawyer to take you and leave Mexico, to raise you as his own. She told everyone, including her husband and sons, that you died in childbirth. The only people who knew the truth were the doctor and your adoptive parents.”
Mia stands frozen, emotions warring across her face. In the beginning, I wondered if she might know something, if her parents had told her pieces of the truth over the years. But it’s clear she had no fucking clue about any of this.
“I don’t know what to say. This is insane. My parents would have told me.”
“Are you sure about that?”
She doesn’t look sure about anything anymore.
“Why are you so convinced it’s true? The guy was desperate, right? Maybe he made something up to save his own skin.”
“I confirmed everything before I acted on it.” I stand and move to my desk, pulling open the top drawer. “There are no hospital records of your birth. Your birth certificate is a fake—a good one, but still fake. We could do a DNA test if you want, but I found something else in my research.”
I place the black-and-white photograph on the desk between us. It’s old, taken when the woman was in her twenties, but the resemblance is unmistakable.
