White Knight (Dirty Mafia Duet, #2)(56)

The walls of the library and the empty fire grate seem to close in on me until I have to sit. I plop into a chair, and Cannon drops to a crouch beside me.

“Baby, it’s going to be okay. We’re going to get her back. Just breathe.”

I nod, focusing on my clenched fists in my lap. One by one, I force myself to relax my fingers until they’re outstretched.

“I’m okay. I’m okay.” I repeat the words, as if hoping the more times I say them, the more likely they are to be true. If . . . if I were really Alessandra Rossetti, which I’m definitely not, what would that mean?

Visions flash before my eyes of a dark-haired man lifting me into the air, and my flouncy pink princess dress rises and falls with each toss. A woman’s voice yells at him from the house to be careful—in Italian. But I know what she’s saying.

Is it a memory? The picture is so vivid, straight down to the white ruffled socks and the shiny black patent-leather shoes on my feet.

It can’t be real. It’s not real. I would know if Leander Lockwood weren’t my father. Wouldn’t I? But he never told me about my biological mother. Ever.

Why wouldn’t he tell me if there was nothing to hide?

I flay myself with questions. Like, why didn’t I push him for more answers? I’m an investigative journalist, for God’s sake. That’s what I do. But I already know the answer to that because it’s not the first time I’ve asked myself.

Leander Lockwood was an incredible man, and when he asked something of me, I complied without question. That was the kind of loyalty, confidence, and love he inspired in me, the most curious child to ever be born.

But was I born to him?

I had to have been. Maybe he had an affair? Knowing my stepmother for what she is, I wouldn’t have blamed him. Although, to hear her tell the story, the tension in their marriage didn’t begin until I arrived. Arrived, not was born.

I always assumed I was a child born to a woman who wasn’t his wife and that’s why my stepmother treated me the way she did. But I got so much love from my father, it didn’t bother me. I was Daddy’s girl, and that’s the way I liked it. Was I looking for his approval and affection so much that I was willing to overlook all the details of my birth that didn’t add up?

Yes. Absolutely yes. And I can’t imagine any person on the planet who wouldn’t have done the same. My father was that kind of man. Magnetic and kind and generous and all things good. Why else would the American people have loved him for so long while he brought them hard story after hard story, but did it with compassion and fairness?

My instinct is to feel stupid and small for not digging, but when I remember my father, it all fades away. There’s nothing I wouldn’t have done for him. Nothing I wouldn’t have refrained from doing.

But he’s gone, and I must believe that in this situation, with Cynthia at risk, he would want me to get her back safely. Even though they were divorced, he cared for her and her well-being.

I lift my chin and meet Cannon’s gaze. Throughout my pinball machine of a thought process, he’s stayed crouched in front of me, waiting for me to digest the information.

“Are you sure you’re okay? Because I’d understand if you’re not.” The way he says it tells me he thinks I am Alessandra Rossetti.

I stare into those hazel eyes that I’ve fallen in love with over and over, and there’s no judgment. No hate. No disgust.

That’s the moment I know that he’s just as incredible a man as my father. He doesn’t see me any differently, regardless of the name and family history I may share with his enemies.

“If I were Alessandra Rossetti . . . which I’m not,” I make sure to add so everyone knows where I stand. “Who would the current Rossettis be to me?”

“Giancarlo is your uncle, and GTR is your cousin,” Benny says.

I blink a few times as I process the information. “There’s no way I’m related to them. There just isn’t. I can’t be. It’s not possible.”

Cannon takes my hand between his. “Someone might say the same thing when they find out that Dominic Casso is his father. We don’t get to choose our family, baby. No matter how much we might wish we could.”

“But they’re monsters,” I say, my voice breaking when I think of the lives they took and the injuries they caused on the sidewalk with their bullets and the blood they spilled.

“We all are, kid. Some of us just hide it better than others,” Benny says.

I cut my gaze to his. “I’m not a monster. I don’t care who I am or whose blood runs in my veins, I’m not like them or you, if that’s what you are.”

Benny’s face softens, but that doesn’t make his next statement any easier to swallow. “If you’d been raised a mob princess, like your daddy had planned, who knows what you might have been capable of. Then again, you could’ve turned out like Eden. Sweet as pie. We’ll never know.”

My shoulders tug back until I’m sitting straight up. “My father was Leander Lockwood, and he raised me to be smart, kind, curious, and compassionate.” My tone is sharp enough to wound, and Cannon squeezes tighter.

“No one can take that away from you. You’re right, it doesn’t matter whose blood runs in your veins, you are Leander Lockwood’s daughter because he was your father. He didn’t have to give you his DNA to make that true. He gave you everything else that made you who you are.”