The Billionaire Mafia Boss's Fiancee Made a Broke Delivery Driver Kneel in Birthday Cake - Then She Learned Who Avery Carter Used to Be

For a second, I forgot Vanessa was on the floor.

"You knew my father?"

Dominic's eyes stayed on me.

"Yes."

"How?"

"Not here."

Vanessa stood up so fast she nearly slipped in frosting.

"Dominic, are you seriously doing this now? She assaulted me."

"You slapped her first."

"She embarrassed me in my own house."

"It's my house."

That landed harder than my takedown.

Vanessa's mouth closed.

Dominic looked at his security chief, Mateo Ruiz.

"Clear the room."

People began leaving with the disappointed faces of guests who had expected a public execution and gotten a family argument instead.

I grabbed my delivery bag.

"I'm going home."

Dominic stepped in front of the service hallway.

"Avery."

I hated that he knew my first name.

"Move."

"Your father did not die the way you were told."

The room tilted.

Vanessa whispered, "Dominic."

He ignored her.

I laughed once because the alternative was screaming.

"My father died in an industrial accident eight years ago. I identified his watch. My mother buried him."

"You buried a sealed casket."

My throat tightened.

"How do you know that?"

"Because I was at the building the night he died."

I stared at him.

Dominic was thirty-five now. Eight years earlier he would have been twenty-seven.

Exactly my age.

"Why?"

"Your father worked for my family."

That hurt in a way I did not understand.

Dad had been a maintenance supervisor at Halcyon Industrial. That was what every document said. That was what Mom had always said.

"No."

"He did both jobs."

"What job?"

Dominic glanced toward Vanessa.

She looked furious now, but underneath it was fear.

"Security," he said. "Investigations. Problems my father didn't trust the police to handle."

I stared at him.

"You're telling me my dad worked for the Morettis?"

"Yes."

Everybody in Chicago knew the Moretti name. Construction. Logistics. Restaurants. Real estate.

And the other things people only whispered about.

"My father hated criminals."

"Your father hated bullies," Dominic said. "That is not the same thing."

Vanessa stepped between us.

"Enough. Avery, leave."

I looked at her.

"You knew who I was."

She said nothing.

Seven weeks of requested deliveries.

My mother's dialysis schedule.

The gloves.

The service entrance.

The deliberate little humiliations.

"You requested me because of my father."

Vanessa's silence answered.

I turned to Dominic.

"Why?"

Before he could speak, my phone rang.

MOM.

I answered.

"Hey, Mom."

There was breathing on the other end.

Not my mother's.

A man's voice said, "If Moretti tells you what happened to Thomas, Linda Carter misses dialysis tomorrow."

Then the call ended.

I ran.

Dominic caught my arm.

I almost threw him too.

"My mother."

"Mateo," he snapped.

Security moved before I finished the sentence.

Twenty-five minutes later, we reached my apartment.

The front door was open.

The kitchen light was on.

My mother sat at the table, pale but unharmed, with two police officers beside her.

I collapsed against her.

"Are you okay?"

"I'm fine. Someone came in. I locked myself in the bathroom."

She held me hard.

Then she saw Dominic standing behind me.

My mother's entire body went rigid.

"No," she whispered.

Dominic looked like he had been punched.

Mom pointed toward the door.

"Get him out of my house."

I stared at her.

"You know him too?"

She closed her eyes.

And that was when I understood the first lie about my father had not come from Dominic.

"Truth changes what we know," she said. "It doesn't change what happened."

I looked at the brass key on the table. "What if the truth changes him?"

"Whatever you learn about your father, don't let it erase the man who loved you."

That landed. For a minute we were not witnesses or targets. We were just two exhausted women in a small apartment while rain tapped against plastic covering the broken passenger window of my car. Mom squeezed my hand.

"Neither does getting yourself killed."

"Scared doesn't pay for dialysis."

Mom gave me the look mothers save for bad liars. "Avery, somebody knew my treatment schedule. Somebody came into our home. You are allowed to be scared."

"I'm not scared," I lied.

I stopped with my hand on the window latch. Dad used to say something similar after tournaments. If I lost, I cleaned my gear. If I won, I cleaned it faster. Motion made feelings easier to ignore.

"Pretend being useful means you aren't scared."

"What thing?"

"You still do that thing," she said.

Before anyone slept, I checked every lock twice and pushed a dining chair under the front doorknob even though Dominic had left two men in an unmarked car downstairs. Mom watched me from the couch.

It had come from my mother.

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