The Mafia King’s Debt

SECRETS

My eyes lowered to the cover.

ADOPTION PAPERS.

The words seemed to blur before I could read them properly, and for two seconds, I couldn’t bring myself to bend down and pick up the folder.

“Go ahead,” Sharon said quietly, her voice carrying a satisfaction that made my stomach twist. “You wanted proof.”

My hands felt cold as I crouched and lifted the folder, although some stubborn part of me continued insisting that whatever I found inside could not possibly mean what she wanted me to believe.

The first page bore an official letterhead from ‘Happy Children’s Home.’ a private children’s care facility in Westbridge, with a date printed beneath it.

October 14, 2000.

My birth year.

A line farther down contained my name.

Child’s Name: Cora Bennett.

My eyes moved to the next entry.

Date of Birth: October 3, 2000.

For a moment, the room seemed to tilt, and I gripped the folder more tightly as I struggled to keep reading. Then I saw the names listed beneath the section marked Adoptive Parents.

Victor Bennett and Sophia Bennett.

My parents.

“No,” I whispered, shaking my head as though refusing the words could make them disappear.

The document claimed that Victor Bennett and Sophia Bennett had legally adopted me from ‘Happy Children’s Home’ when I was eleven days old, following approval from the Westbridge Family Court.

I read the paragraph again, searching for a mistake, an inconsistency, or some indication that the document belonged to another child.

But the name was mine.

The date of birth was mine.

And the names of the two people I had spent my whole life calling Mum and Dad were printed directly beneath the words ‘Adoptive Parents.’

My fingers began trembling so badly that turning the page became difficult.

The next section contained two more entries.

Biological Mother: Unknown.

Biological Father: Unknown.

My vision blurred.

“No,” I repeated, my voice barely audible. “This can’t be right.”

Sharon remained silent, allowing me to stare at the page while my mind desperately searched for an explanation that would make everything feel normal again.

Perhaps the document had been altered.

Perhaps someone had made a mistake when recording the details.

Perhaps another child had been registered under my name, and this folder had somehow ended up among my parents’ belongings.

There had to be an explanation. Because the alternative was too painful to consider.

A handwritten note had been attached to the final page, and after several seconds of hesitation, I forced myself to read it.

‘The child was abandoned. No identifying information regarding the biological parents was provided at the time of admission.’

My breath caught in my throat.

Abandoned?

The word felt cruel, almost impossible to connect to the life I remembered, and I looked up at Sharon with tears gathering in my eyes.

“How did you get this?” I asked, struggling to keep my voice steady. “Why are you only showing it to me now?”

“Does it matter how I got it?” she replied. “The documents speak for themselves.”

“No, they don’t,” I said quickly, shaking my head. “They show what someone wrote on a piece of paper, but they don’t explain anything about my parents or why they never told me.”

“Perhaps they knew you wouldn’t accept it.”

“Stop saying that!” My voice rose before I could control it. “You keep talking as though you know everything about my life, but you haven’t explained why I should trust anything you tell me.”

For the first time, Sharon’s smile faded slightly.

I looked down at the folder again, unable to stop my eyes from returning to the names printed on the page.

Victor Bennett.

Sophia Bennett.

My parents had never made me feel abandoned, unwanted, or different from anyone else. Even if they had adopted me, that didn’t erase the years they had spent raising me, and it certainly didn’t prove that I had somehow caused their deaths.

“I’m not accepting this as the truth just because you’ve decided to show it to me tonight,” I told Sharon, pressing the folder against my chest. “I want to know where these papers came from, who signed them, and if anyone has verified that they’re genuine.”

“You can deny it all you want, Cora, but that won’t change who you are.”

“And you can keep saying whatever you want,” I replied, wiping my tears away, “but I will not accuse my parents of lying to me until I know the whole story.”

ADAM’S POV

There were three things I hated more than anything in this world.

Betrayal.

Losing money.

Women who believed a pretty face could make a fool out of me.

Unfortunately, by Ten forty-seven that night, I had a problem involving all three, and the most irritating part was that I couldn’t stop thinking about one particular woman.

Even thinking about her name made me remember the way she had looked at me in her apartment, standing there with blood covering her hands and fear written all over her beautiful face.

She had looked so terrified that, for the first time in a very long time, I had found myself regretting the way I spoke to someone before understanding the situation. Not that I intended to admit that to her.

A man could have a reputation to maintain. Mine happened to involve billions of dollars, several powerful business interests, and people who would happily tear each other apart for a fraction of what I owned.

Apologizing to an employee because I had frightened her was hardly the sort of thing my associates expected from me. Still, the memory of Cora’s trembling voice followed me out of St. Vincent Memorial Hospital, and I found myself wondering whether she had managed to stop crying after I left.

That was ridiculous.

She worked at Dodo Club, one of my most profitable establishments, and I had noticed her long before the shooting, although I had never given myself a reason to approach her beyond ordinary workplace matters.

There was something about her that made watching her more interesting than watching the other women who frequented my clubs, and I suspected the difference had less to do with her appearance than I cared to admit.

Cora was beautiful, certainly. Her eyes were expressive, her lips were distracting, and her shape was one of the best I had seen. But I had met beautiful women in every country I had visited, dated women whose faces appeared on magazine covers, and entertained women who considered a private dinner with me the beginning of their happily-ever-after. Most of them knew exactly what they wanted from me.

Money, influence, expensive gifts, or the privilege of telling their friends they had spent the night with a man whose name could open almost any door.

Cora, on the other hand, had looked at me as though she couldn’t decide whether I was her employer, a potential criminal, or the most inconvenient man she had ever encountered.

The fact that she was attracted to me had not escaped my attention, either. I had caught the occasional glance when she thought I wasn’t looking, followed by the sudden interest she developed in whatever happened to be directly in front of her.

Tonight, however, she had looked at me differently. She had been frightened, vulnerable, and clearly overwhelmed by everything happening around her, yet she had still managed to look me in the eyes when she disagreed with me. She even saved me from getting shot.

That kind of courage was attractive. Unfortunately, so was the fact that she seemed determined to keep her distance. And I had always found things I couldn’t have considerably more interesting than things that were offered to me without effort.

My phone vibrated before I could entertain that thought any longer.

MARCUS: We need you at the penthouse. Now.