Fate Book Two Read Online Free PDF

possibilities were endless. However…“I’m guessing to lie to me. But that would be crazy. You’d never lie to me, would you?”
    He tilted his head to one side, his patience hanging by a thread.
    No. I didn’t care. But I did want answers.
    I strolled across the stained brown carpet over to the computer chair with one missing armrest and sat, never breaking eye contact with my father. I wanted him to know I wasn’t afraid of him. “Start talking.”
    He took a slow half breath, half grumble. “Paolo is the one who gave me a list of your aliases.”
    “What?”
    “He never really stopped working for me.”
    “I thought you retired,” I said.
    “I’ve had to remain involved in a few last projects.”
    So he’d lied to my mother. Why wasn’t I surprised?
    “Well,” I said smugly, “Paolo wouldn’t lie to me.”
    My father cocked one silver brow. “He would do anything I told him if he believed it meant keeping you safe. At least, that’s what I thought.”
    Oh no. I felt it coming. My father was getting ready to sell me a lie. A big lie.
    “So you asked him to spy on me, and he agreed.” It wasn’t a question, really. More of a statement to convey my complete and utter disbelief.
    My father leaned against the wall and crossed his arms. “You don’t believe me.”
    “No.”
    “Krasmira Ivanova, Judy O’Dell, Amy Bingham, Kristy Harris, Ann Ellis, Blythe Kuykendall…” My father went on to list every alias I’d come up with, a list only Paolo knew; after all, he’d helped me get the matching passports, credit cards, and…
    Click! Oh crap. My father had been helping him. Paolo had told me he’d used his own, “very trustworthy” contacts to get passports and credit cards, but now that I thought about it, that had been too easy an answer.
    I’m such an ass. On the other hand, I’d had no reason to doubt Paolo. He’d put his life on the line for me multiple times.
    “Fine,” I said, “so Paolo kept working with you because he felt it was the best way to keep me safe. I don’t see the crime.”
    My father reached into his jacket pocket and pulled out a stack of folded papers. “Dakota, I know I’ve lied to you, and you have no reason to trust me, but I need you to believe me when I say that Paolo is not the man you thought.”
    “Meaning?”
    “He fooled us both. He used you to keep tabs on me. He fed the information back to his family.”
    My blood ran thick with anger. “You know what I think? You just didn’t want me to be with Paolo. I think you were mad at him for leaving your stupid little organization.”
    My father placed his hand on his waist and looked at the floor. “You’re right. I’m not going to lie. But I gave you both my blessing, and I meant it.”
    “Then why did you take him?” I asked scornfully.
    “I didn’t. The truth is that a few minutes before the ceremony, I received a message confirming that information had been leaked—our apartment in Paris was ransacked while we were away in Costa Rica with you. I asked Paolo about it, and he ran.”
    This can’t be possible. Paolo and I were the only two who knew about my parents’ apartment in Paris.
    I stood, unsure if this was the truth, and praying to God it wasn’t. “You let me believe he’d been taken.”
    My father held out his hands. “I had no idea what Paolo might have told his people; I needed you and your mom out of there. That was my only concern.”
    “So where did you go after that? Where the hell have you been?”
    “Getting proof.” He held out the tri-folded stack of papers.
    Hesitantly, I took them and unfolded the nail to Paolo’s coffin. The first page was a printout of Paolo wearing sunglasses, unshaven, his dark hair cut short and slicked back. He stood on a street corner, wearing a very stylish black suit and talking on a cell. From the buildings around him and the parked cars in the picture, he looked to be somewhere in Europe.
    “Is this a photo shoot?” I asked. Because,