Chapter 70
Layla
“Is that a threat?” I peeled the phone from my cheek to switch it to speaker. Set it atop Aldo’s desk so both he and Ethan could hear it. I knew I didn’t need to tell either one to be quiet.
“Not at all,” said the speaker, and I thought I could just track the faintest traces of some kind of accent in the clipped, careful words. “It’s an offer.”
Across the desk, Aldo was frantically typing into his own phone. No doubt trying to get Carlo to trace the number or find out something on the caller.
Beside me, Ethan watched with a grim expression.
“I don’t make deals with strangers,” I said. “And I don’t do cryptic bullshit riddles. Truth, or I hang up.”
“Are you ready to know the truth?” the caller asked, still too calm. No inflection—their very voice a mask. I couldn't even properly tell if it was male or female.
“I’m ready for everyone to stop keeping fucking secrets,” I spat back. “So, yeah, I guess that amounts to the same thing.”
“It’s too sensitive for over the phone,” the voice cooed right back. “If you want to know the truth about your life and your parents, meet us tomorrow morning at the address I’ll send to you. Come alone or not, it’s irrelevant.”
Before I could ask anything more, the line went dead.
“Well, that was rude,” I muttered, still staring at the screen. A new text message flashed across the screen.
9am, it read, followed by an address just outside the city.
“You can’t seriously be thinking of going,” Ethan said. “Give me the address and I’ll have officers—”
“No.” I snatched the phone up off the desk. “I need to find out if this is real.”
“It’s a trap!” Ethan barked, his eyes wide with concern. “Isn’t that obvious?”
“No.” Aldo’s voice was a calming summer breeze through the tension. “It’s not. We’ll meet them. Tomorrow.”
The next morning, I found myself in the passenger seat of Aldo’s car. My mind raced nearly as fast as the scenery past the window as we approached the location.
I had no idea what any of this could be, could mean. But if it somehow involved my parents, the family I thought I’d lost long ago … I owed it to them to find out, didn’t I?
And for once, Aldo had agreed. For once, he hadn’t argued with me as I had climbed into his car. And maybe that was the biggest indication of all that this was something I had to do.
“How did you know it wasn’t a trap?” I asked, studying his tight grip on the wheel. He didn’t like this, but he hadn’t tried to stop me, either.
“It’s too obvious.” He lifted a shoulder in a shrug. “Doesn’t feel like one. Doesn’t feel like Aurora or Marco, either. And the woman who called you—her accent was Russian.”
I stored that little bit of information away for later. “If it’s not a trap, then it must be truth.”
“I didn’t say that.” Aldo readjusted his grip on the wheel. “But I do want to know what the hell it is.”
He turned the car down what appeared to be a private road lined in tall, elegant oak trees. A Mediterranean style villa unfolded from between the greenery as we approached.
A wrought iron gate tucked it all away.
When I caught sight of the men in the tailored suits standing stiffly before the gate, I knew. “This is more Mafia bullshit.”
The gates swung open, and Aldo steered the car down a long, winding drive. More ancient oaks towered overhead, and pristine gardens lined the pathway. As we approached the house, more suited guards swept out to meet us.
“It’s not Mafia,” Aldo said as we climbed from the car, keeping his voice low. “But it’s not all clean and legal, that’s for sure.”
Three guards moved towards the car as if they would intercept us, but a man with sharp, piercing grey eyes waved them away as he marched down the flagstone steps leading from the house.
“Layla Bennett.” It wasn’t a question; he had eyes only for me. My stomach churned at the unsettling, unblinking way he studied me. “Welcome to my home.”
His accent was thick—Russian, I guessed, based on Aldo’s previous comment.
“Want to tell me why I’m here?” I asked, because I was tired of formalities and small talk. I was here for truth. Answers to questions I hadn’t realized I’d had.
“Come with me,” the man said, gesturing for us to follow.
Aldo tensed, his hand hovering near where I knew he hid a weapon, but I brushed my fingers along the crook of his elbow. “C’mon, Aldo.”
He let his arm drop, and together, we followed the sharp-eyed man into the house.
I tried not to stare. I was used to grandeur, thanks to my time at the Marcello estate, but this was something else entirely.
Chandeliers crafted in crystal threw rainbow patterns across the sparkling marble floors. Fountains spouted water into trickling granite pools. Sconces threw tongues of shadow and flame across the carved wood walls.
I gave up on trying not to stare.
So I barely registered where we walked, how many halls we passed through or rooms we passed by before the man was leading us into a sprawling and lavishly decorated living room.
An older man and woman sat beside the ornately carved fireplace.
The woman leant back in a plushy red armchair, legs crossed. And she looked exactly like my mother—about twenty years aged.
I stopped halfway into the room. And I stared.
“Welcome, Layla.” The older man stood, a soft smile turning the corners of his mouth. “We’ve been looking for you for a very long time.”
My ears buzzed with white noise. “What?”
“I’m Dmitri Orlov. And this is my wife Irena. Please. Sit.” He held out his hand to an empty chair across from the blonde woman who was definitely not my mother. She regarded me with an eagle-eyed stare, but still hadn’t spoken.
I perched.
Aldo hovered behind me, like an overprotective bodyguard, rather than the don of the Italian Mafia.
“Why am I here, Mr. Orlov?” I asked, pressing my palms down against my knees to keep them from jiggling with the sudden nerves that had taken flight inside me like a swarm of butterflies.
My eyes kept skating back towards the blonde woman. The one who was decidedly not my mother.
“You’re here because this is where you belong,” said Dmitri. “This is your family home.”
The buzzing in my ears grew louder. The blonde woman filled my vision. Why did she look so much like my mother?
“The Orlov family is a powerful branch of the Russian mob,” Dmitri continued, and through the buzzing in my ears and in my head, I barely registered the words. “Your mother, Elena Orlov, was my treasured youngest daughter.”
“What?” The words felt surreal. Surely, this was a dream. A nightmare? One of the two; it couldn't be real.
“She was stolen away from me during a violent power struggle within the family.
“We thought we lost her forever,” Dmitri said, his voice thick with emotion. “But she escaped. She built a life for herself, far from the violence she was born into. And she had you.”
I could only stare. Ears buzzing, heart pounding, breath shallow.
It was Aldo who spoke, his deep voice cutting through the chaos. “How do you know this? How can you be sure?”
“You had a hair sample tested months ago.” The woman—Irena—rose from her chair. Her voice was soft and sweet, like my mother’s but tinged with a Russian accent. “For a paternity test.”
She held out a folder to me, and with trembling fingers I took it. “I did.”
“Well, we’ve been looking for your mother for a long time. We’ve put a lot of money and resources into keeping an eye on DNA testing. For just such situations.”
The woman smiled tightly, then returned to her chair. “You’ll find everything you need to know inside that folder.”
Fingers still trembling, I flipped open the folder. The first page was the DNA test results, but that was hardly the end. My hands shook visibly as I turned through old family photos—and my mother’s face stared back at me.
She was younger. Smiling. Surrounded by other people who looked just like her. Like the woman seated in front of me now.
“How … how is this possible?” I murmured, staring. Just staring. Unable to process what I was seeing.
“And why,” Aldo leaned over me, his warmth and soft sent bringing that sense of safety with them, “are you reaching out now?”
“Because,” said Irena, her voice hardening to ice. “The alliance between Marco Moretti and Aurora Falcone threatens more than just your family, Mr. Marcello. Layla is our family—and we take care of our own.”
