Kill For Me (Snakes Henchmen MC 5)

“Hello, Ghost,” Someone must have told her not to call me Daniel as she did the day she met me. “It's good to see you.” I nod my head as she takes a seat at the table.

She's a beautiful woman, and I have to wonder if she looks anything like our mother. “How are you?” I ask.

She smiles wider, her brown eyes and heart-shaped lips speak volumes to how that simple question made her feel. “I'm doing good, thank you. How are you?”

“Not bad. Would you like something to drink?”

“Oh, no, thank you; I don't drink alcohol.” I raise my eyebrow. Who the hell doesn't drink alcohol? No one in my life, that's for sure. “I'm guessing that's a strange concept for you.” I shrug. I don't really give a shit. “I know this is taking some getting used to, and I'm sorry that I sprung it on you the way I did. I never intended to walk up to you and blurt out who I was.”

“How else were you supposed to tell me?”

She bites the inside of her lip while twisting her fingers together. She's nervous. The sharpness in my tone can't be helping. I don't want to be hostile towards her. This woman is my sister, my blood, and I need to love and cherish her - my sister and her child.

“I'm so sorry if I've made you feel uncomfortable being here. I hadn't intended to stay so long, but I couldn't seem to give up the hope that you might speak with me.”

I don't know what to say to that, so I say nothing.

“I know you might not want to hear this, but my parents told me, when they finally told me about you, how they wanted to adopt you as well as me. They said we were identical.” She giggles to herself. “The adoption agency told them that you had already been adopted and were waiting for your new family to pick you up. Was that true? Were you adopted?”

“No,” I shift in my seat. “I wasn't adopted. I was passed from care home to care home. I was fostered for a while, but the family couldn't handle me. I was difficult. Anyone who fostered me after that couldn't handle me for long either.”

“You never had a loving home?” I see tears in her eyes. Sadness for me, but it isn't pity. Funnily, I know it isn't. I have to be honest with her, the way I know, she'll be honest with me. That's why I shake my head. “Danny,” She whispers my name through her sadness, wiping away the tears that are falling.

“You don't need to cry for me, Cordelia. I survived. I'm a fighter. I found these guys, or rather, Red and Roman found me.”

“Red told me some of what you've been through. Please don't be angry with him; he just wanted me to know why he thinks so much of you.” I'm not angry — another first for me. I hate people talking about me and my life, but I'm not angry because my Dad was telling my sister about me. “He spoke so fondly of you. He told me that in his heart, he became your father the day he found you. You may not have had the best start in life, but you found your family, Ghost. This place,” She looks around. “The people here, Red, his wife, and children, your wife, and your children...” She smiles at me. “You found your way, and now I found you. All my life, I knew something was missing. A part of me that I couldn't explain.”

I can't take my eyes off of her as she explains her childhood in England. She grew up in a mansion style home in Surrey, the only child of Dylan and Gwen Owens. Cordelia's name was never changed from birth, just as mine wasn't. She was told from a very early age that she was adopted, and what her real name was, prompting Cordelia to use the name Vitali-Owens.

Her school years were spent in boarding schools, vacations were spent all over the world with her family, just as Christmases were. She never wanted for anything in life. She met a man during veterinarian school, and they got married when she was twenty-two, he died in a boating accident three years later. He obviously isn't her daughter's father, the little girl, Felicity. Her father was some guy Cordelia met in a bar and slept with, a one night stand, something Cordelia tells me she isn't proud of, but she wouldn't change her eight-month-old daughter for the world.

She pulls a photograph from her handbag and hands it to me. I instantly smile because the little girl in the picture is the most beautiful I have ever seen. “She's beautiful.”

“Thank you.” I hand her back the picture, and I see the pride in her eyes when she looks at that baby. I reach into my inside pocket and grab my wallet. I take the picture I keep there and hand it to her. “Is this your family?” I nod when she looks at me. “Your wife is stunning. You have beautiful children, Ghost. This one,”

“Daniel,” I tell her for clarification.

“He the spitting image of you. That would make this one Vinny?” I nod. “I have to say that he's going to look just like you too. I have a couple of pictures; I'd like you to see. They were given to me by my parents six months ago.” She hands me back the picture of my family, and I put it away. “After I gave birth to Felicity, I started talking more and more about my birth parents; I needed to know where I came from. My mother told me that I had no other family; my father had done checks to make sure. They wanted to be able to tell me all that they could. I couldn't settle, I told them that I knew there was someone out there, someone connected to me, I could feel it.”

She digs into her bag, finds what she's looking for, and pushes it across the table to me. “My mother sat me down and told me everything she knew about you. I was angry, and I couldn't understand why my parents would keep something so huge from me for all those years. I had a twin brother.” She taps the picture, and I look down at it.

I blink three times before my eyes can take in what I'm seeing. Two infants, I'd say a few weeks of age, one boy, one girl. Side by side they sit propped up on a large pillow, her in a little pink sleep-suit, the boy in blue. It fascinates me to see how those tiny babies are holding hands.

I stroke my finger across the picture, touching both babies faces. That's me in the picture, me, and Cordelia. She really is my sister; the photograph is evidence enough. I know because I recognize the little boy in the photo from the one in my wallet.

I take the torn picture of myself from my wallet, and I place it on top of the picture of the two of us. I watch as Cordelia does the same with the torn half she's taken from her purse. It's the same picture. Someone ripped the image in half and left the piece with us.

“It's you and me, Danny. You are the piece I've been missing all these years.” We stare at each other for a moment, and something inside of me shifts. She's my sister; I haven't been alone in the world all these years. Two more people share my blood.

I don't know how I'm supposed to feel. I don't know this woman, but I know that I love her already. I want to protect her with all that I am, her and her little girl.

“I'm sorry it took this long to find you.” I watch the tears form in her eyes, and I can't deny I feel a little emotional myself. “I have something else to show you.” She digs in her purse again, pulling out another photograph. She holds it to her chest and smiles. “My mother gave me this. She said it was found in our birth mothers purse when the police went through her belongings. It was one of the only things that they managed to save.” She places it face up in front of me. It's a picture of a man and a woman each holding a baby in their arms, both smiling for the camera. “Does this man look familiar?”

“He looks like me.” Not as built, but feature-wise, he looks just like me.

“Daniel Vitali.” I narrow my eyes a little. “This is our birth father. His name was Daniel Vitali. You were named after him, and your son carries on his name also. This is Dianna. She's our mother.” And she's as beautiful as her daughter. “My adopted parents found out a few things about Daniel and Dianna from their search. They met in school and fell in love. Both were heart surgeons, and they made good money. Both were orphans if you can believe that.”

I can believe tha

t. I weirdly felt it in my heart. I was never told much about them growing up. The authorities told me nothing. I tried to find out about them once upon a time, but I knew nothing about them that would lead me anywhere. I didn't know their names, nor where they came from, I knew only that their car skidded on ice and they were both killed. Having been led to believe I was the only survivor, I gave up on my search for information. Where the hell would it have led me?

To my sister, that's where it would have led me, or nowhere at all.

“Dianna grew up in a group home. She never found a loving family.”

“Like me,” I mumble to myself. My mother grew up just like me.

“Daniel was fostered from the age of four, but never stayed in one home for long.” It looks like I take after both of them. At least Cordelia found a family to love her. I don't think I could have taken hearing she'd gone through life the way I did. “They married young, worked hard, then we came along. You were born seventeen minutes before me, and they loved us, Danny. You only have to look at this picture to see how much they loved us, and each other.”

I'm stunned as Cordelia takes my hand across the table. I instinctively wrap my fingers around hers. “I see it,” I tell her.

“I know our lives would have turned out very differently if they hadn't died. However, I refuse to think about what might have been. If I did that, then I'd have to admit I wouldn't have Felicity, and I refuse to even think about that. I know you think that about your boys.”

I nod my head.

I never want to think about not having them.

“Daniel and Dianna are gone, and you've had a hard life that I wish I could make better for you. However, you met Red, and that man loves you like a father loves his son. You may not have gotten a family like the one I was given, but you got a massive one in these people here, Ghost. All of these people love you. I've seen the love and respect in their eyes for you. Also, I'm here now, and I don't plan on going anywhere unless you tell me that you don't want me here.”