That he was nothing without me.
“Is that the real reason we had to hide?” I ask. “We weren’t running from the O’Sullivans at all, were we? We were running from everyone else. The Greeks. The Marianis.”
Drago bares his teeth at me, and again, he gives himself away.
I charge forward. “You knew that if you handed me over, you’d lose your leverage, your bargaining power. You needed me to get back in the game one day.”
I don’t need to look at Drago’s face to confirm my words. I can feel their truth as I speak them. All these years, I’d been so damn blind.
“Oh God…” I whisper, clutching my stomach as though I can keep my insides from spilling out. “Oh God…”
Something else occurs to me then.
“Why did you give me to Logan?” I ask.
“All the others, they wanted you for nothing,” he snarls. “The Marianis thought of you as their property. The Greeks were condescending fucking pricks. They expected me to walk behind that old fucking goat. They were insulting to me. They treated me like a child.”
I shake my head as the cold hard truth sinks in.
“They thought they could threaten me,” Drago continues. “But I showed them.”
“Showed them?” I repeat incredulously. “What exactly did you show them, Drago? Logan didn’t give you the army or the power you wanted. He took me and turned on you.”
Drago’s expression tells me he still hasn’t forgiven the slight. “It didn’t go the way I wanted. Which was why I ended up having to make the deal with Yannis and the Marianis,” he says.
I get to my feet and start pacing the short length of the cockpit. Had there ever been a time when I’d trusted the man sitting in front of me? How lost, how broken, how alone was I to have thought I could put my life in his hands?
I stop pacing when I’m standing squarely in front of him again. “Tell me what you know about my mother,” I demand.
He narrows his eyes. “Watch your tone.”
“Fuck you. How’s that for my tone?”
He jumps to his feet threateningly, but I just lurch forward and punch him hard—right in his broken forearm. He howls and falls back into his seat with a loud, writhing thud.
“I may not be a killer,” I tell him as he twitches and gasps in front of me. “But I’m not a wallflower, either. And I’m certainly not as weak as I used to be. Now, tell me what you know about my mother. Why was she marrying our father that day? What changed?”
Drago gags with pain. He tries to muster up enough rage to back me down, but he’s pale and suffering. Coward. Weakling. Wimp.
“Papa knew the clan was bringing in reinforcements from Ireland,” he hisses. He’s trying to sound menacing, but he sounds tired more than anything. “He wanted to solidify his hold on New York before they arrived. So the wedding was arranged.”
“I was five years old,” I point out. “And all I ever knew was Papa’s house. Why was I with him instead of her?”
“Because she didn’t fucking want you,” he snaps at me. “Why else?”
I stop short, trying to discern if he’s telling the truth or if he just wants to hurt me. At the moment, it’s hard to tell. “That doesn’t make sense.”
“She was New York’s reigning mafia princess. The woman was groomed for takeover. She was the Mariani don’s only child, and when she got pregnant with you—”
“So she and Papa had a relationship?” I ask desperately.
Drago scoffs. “Relationship?” he repeats. “More like they were both fucking horny on the right night.”
I stare at him, wondering how much he actually knows. “Why don’t you just fucking tell me the whole truth?” I ask. “Even if it’s true that my mother wanted nothing to do with me, I deserve to know why.”
Drago looks up. He fixes me with a searching expression. “You want the truth?” he asks.
“Yes.”