Page 99 of Arranged Control
“I wish I could say.” He leans forward, suddenly fierce as he stares at my face. “How did she look? How did she sound? Did she ask about me?”
I shake my head, startled by his sudden intensity. “We spoke about me. She didn’t mention you at all. I only knew because of this.” I weakly hold up the picture.
He slumps, nodding to himself. “Of course not. I gave her plenty of chances, but she never did reach out. She never wanted to. That’s clear to me now.”
“Papa, I think there’s something wrong with her. She wants me to leave Seamus, and I don’t understand why. She’s killing people. You have to know something… something I can do…”
He shakes his head. “There’s nothing. I’m nothing to her anymore.” He sounds bitter and depressed. “Your mother wasalways skilled. She was trained by some of the best. She knows a dozen languages. She can fight and kill with ease. I’ve seen her scale walls in seconds. Your mother is formidable.”
Now I understand why I’ve always been a disappointment to him. It sounds like my mother is incredible. She was a highly trained and skilled spy, and she turned into this insanely successful assassin. While I’ve been nothing but a bratva princess following orders and running a clothing boutique.
But something twisted in her. My mother broke somehow over the years. Maybe all that training and all that killing finally snapped something, and she’s lost her mind.
“I’m going to keep this.” I stand, clutching the picture.
He looks slightly panicked. “That’s all I have left of her.”
“I’ll keep it safe, but I need it. I have to know what she looks like. She’s still after me, Papa.”
He slumps, holding up a hand. “I understand.”
“Are you sure there’s nothing you can do? Nothing you can tell me?”
“It’s been a long time, Alina. She hasn’t been in my life since you were a baby. Whatever she is now… she’s not the same woman who left. I’m sorry, but all I can tell you is she’s extremely dangerous. And she’s definitely your mother.”
I leave him alone with his vodka and his memory. My stomach is a twisting, burbling mess. I drop my glass at some point on my way back outside. The picture in my hand feels like it’s burning my skin.
Seamus is standing outside the car as I approach. He hurries over, looking worried. “I was about to come after you.”
“It’s okay. I’m okay.”
His eyes narrow, and he takes me gently by the shoulders. “You don’t look okay. What happened in there?”
“I figured out who Molchanie is.” I show him the picture. “She’s my mother, Seamus. That’s why she’s doing all this. She’s my mother.”
Chapter 32
Alina
Itell Seamus everything on the way back to the apartment. He has a dozen questions I can’t answer. Once we’re inside, he pours wine and looks at the photograph, scrutinizing my mother’s face.
“All this felt personal from the start. The way those men were killed. The notes she’s left. The way she spoke about you. I just never guessed it was this.”
“Why do you think she’s doing it?”
“I don’t know.” He shakes his head slowly and hands me the picture back. “But I have a feeling your father didn’t tell you the whole story about their marriage.”
I tuck the picture away in my pocket, being careful not to crease it. “She’s fixated on our relationship. There’s something about me and you being married that she hates.”
“I don’t know why she cares. She abandoned you when you were a baby.”
For some reason, I feel the urge to defend her. “Being a mother isn’t easy. All her life she was a spy. She traveled around and did important things. And then she found herself changing diapers.”
“Diapers are temporary. Family is the most important thing in the world.” His jaw works, and I can tell he’s angry. “It’s not an excuse to abandon her own daughter. What right does she have coming back now?”
“Maybe this is her way of making things right? I mean, can you imagine what she must be like now? She left the spy service to become an assassin. She’s probably been living like a fugitive and a ghost all these years, killing for money. That must’ve twisted something in her.”
“Still not an excuse for what she’s been doing.” Seamus’s fist comes down on the counter. “She murdered good men, Alina. For no good reason. That woman is twisted.”
