Page 62 of My Craving

“We all did.” Alessia’s voice catches slightly. “And I’m sorry we let you believe she simply walked away. I would make the same decision about Maria again because I wasn’t going to let her come back for you, but keeping the truth from you for this long was different. You had a right to know.”

A tear slips down her cheek, and when she starts to reach for him, she stops before touching him. Declan closes the distance himself, taking her hand in his.

“You protected me when I couldn’t protect myself.” He rubs his thumb across her fingers as he looks at her. “You’re the one who was there when I was sick. You raised me. You loved me. Whatever Maria was to me biologically, you’re my mom.”

Alessia presses her lips together, trying to hold herself together as she squeezes his hand. “And you have always been my son.”

Xavier has been quiet through all of it, but his anger is written across his face. “If Maria wasn’t already dead, I’d fucking kill her. How could anyone do that to their own kid?”

Declan wraps an arm around him and pulls him closer. “That’s not you, A Ghrá. I’m your weapon, not the other way around.”

“For her, I’d make an exception.”

The corner of Declan’s mouth lifts before he kisses Xavier’s forehead. “I don’t doubt it.”

Then he gets up and comes toward me. I stand before he reaches me, uncertain what he intends until his arms close around me. Declan and I have never needed much physical affection, but I hold my son while he absorbs a truth I should have given him years ago.

When he pulls back, he keeps one hand on my shoulder. “I’m pissed you didn’t tell me.”

“You have every right to be.”

“But I don’t blame you for what happened.” His grip tightens briefly before he releases me. “I blame her.”

Kieran opens the door, letting everyone back into the office. “There’s something we need to—”

“We heard everything,” Colton says, cutting him off. Ronan lets out an exasperated sigh. “Never let him leave a room without his laptop.” Colton points at Ronan. “Privacy isn’t really his thing.”

Colton looks at Alessia. “I already knew you were a badass from the way you keep this family in line, but finding out you’d go that far to protect them.” He smiles. “I’m really glad Ollie and I are part of this family.”

Ronan wakes his laptop, then looks around the room. “Now that that’s over, can we get back to the current situation?”

“Oh, we will,” Alessia says, resting a hand on his shoulder. “But you and I are going to have a conversation later.” Ronan takes his seat without arguing and connects the computer to the large screen. We’ve dealt with what happened twenty-two years ago as much as we can for now, but Alina is still out there, and we need to figure out what she wants from me.

Liam studies the timeline. “Why wait twenty-two years? If this is about Maria, why come after Uncle Duncan now?”

“She would’ve been a teenager when Maria disappeared,” Conor says. “Whatever she knew or suspected then, she didn’t have the resources to do much with it. Look at what she did afterward.”

Ronan expands the timeline, showing Alina’s education and the years she spent moving through positions connected to Whitmore Holdings. None of it proves she spent twenty-two years planning this exact attack, but she’s been building the kind of connections that eventually put her in the same social circles as me.

Finn picks up from there. “Liam and I spoke to Nathan Whitmore last night. He claims he had no idea Alina was using Daniela Norris’s identity and believed she was exactly who she said she was.”

They flew to Chicago last night and came directly here from the airport this morning. Whatever happened during that conversation didn’t require much sleep afterward.

“Did he cooperate?” Kieran asks.

Liam leans back against the conference table. “Once he understood how bad this could look for him, yes. He introduced a woman using a stolen identity into private social circles, including ours. If this becomes public, he’s agreed to say that Alina deceived him too.”

“Do you believe that?”

“I believe he wants to protect himself.” Liam’s expression hardens. “Whether he knew who she really was is another question. My gut says he knew more than he’s admitting, but I don’t have proof.”

Declan has been quieter than usual since everyone returned, with Xavier close beside him. “What do we have on the allegations against Daidí?”

Colton takes over the screen. “Something useful. I got into the email accounts belonging to the four women named in the complaint, and all four were contacted before they made any accusations.”

He opens the first thread. The earliest messages are careful, asking whether I ever made the woman uncomfortable or said anything she considered inappropriate. The answers give whoever contacted her nothing to work with.

“That’s how each conversation starts,” Colton explains. “Questions first. They were given opportunities to describe something that actually happened, and none of them did. After that, the messages change.”