“Give me up?” I tried to follow.
“I think it’s time I told you my part in this whole thing.” I tried hard to breathe evenly to stop the pain in my chest as he spoke. “I was in love with your mother. I still am, apparently.” He chuckled darkly. “But our happily ever after never came. Things got very complicated, and we were torn apart. She later married and had you. But your mother’s, ah, life situation became unbearable. As things worsened, she knew she needed to get you somewhere safe. She turned to me, the one person in this world she trusted, for help. We made an agreement that I would hide you away from danger and,” he hesitated, “from the Capri family.”
“Because she believed the Capri family killed her brother.”
“Right.”
“But they didn’t?”
“No, they didn’t.” He turned to look at
