Loving a Killer | 18+

0.3 - Resemblance

| Norah |

"Your mother, Aurora, was an independent, strong-willed, and boldly defiant woman. She had a fierceness about her that could sway anyone. It's what made me fall for her in the first place." Adriano explained, pulling out the top drawer on his right and picked up a small picture. He stared at it for a brief moment and smiled, before handing it to me.

I looked down at the photo, shock, and admiration filling me as I was faced with a photographed woman who looked just like me. Her dark brown hair curled around her face, and hazel eyes facing the camera as she smiled. In her arms was a little baby girl and beside her was Adriano. Instead of looking towards the camera, he looked at her, expression filled with a deep love for her. I still saw it in him when I directed my gaze up to him.

"That's what the other man meant when we were leaving the hall ... I do look just like her," I recalled, now understanding what he had said earlier. A small smile formed across Adriano's face.

"A spitting image in fact. Even as a baby, everyone could tell you took more resemblance to Aurora," Adriano explained.

I gazed back down at the photo and focused on him in the picture. There was no doubt in my mind when I looked back up to him.

"And you ... you're my father?" I asked, more of a statement waiting to be confirmed. Adriano nodded subtly. I felt my breath catch in my throat as I sat back in the chair, my heart shuttering.

That's when I felt the confusion that filled me for twenty-three years start to consume me. I couldn't help but let it come pouring out of me.

"Why?" I asked, furrowing my brow at him. "Why'd you leave me at the fire station? Why did you send me away?" I paused and felt my heart falter when I looked down at my mother's happy face.

"Why'd you wait this long to come find me?" I murmured. Maddox sat in silence beside us, and I could feel his gaze move from Adriano to me.

"Norah..." Adriano sighed, running his hands through his hair. "I had to send you away in order to keep you safe. I had to keep you away from this life and give you a new start. You don't know how hard it was to let you go, but your mother made me promise. She made me swear that I'd send you away and keep you out of this - this mess."

"I want to speak with her," I said firmly, now wanting to know why my own mother made my father abandon me. I wanted to know her reason, and I could only do that if I spoke to her.

Who knew if anything Adriano said was even true.

"You can't," Adriano stated, looking me dead in the eye with an unwavering expression.

"What do you mean I can't?" I asked in a slightly annoyed tone. I needed to see her, to speak to her.

"She's dead Norah. She died when you were two months old," Adriano informed me, causing my heart to drop. All those times I dreamed about meeting her, about one day finding her, and the whole time ...

"I couldn't deny her of her dying wish. She wanted me to keep you out of the danger that follows this family. If the boys were younger, she would've begged me to get you and your brothers out of this family's business," Adriano continued. I was taken aback by his statement.