"CHRISTINA, I DON'T UNDERSTAND what happened," my mom says as we sit in the backseat of the Rolls Royce. Antonio took off in a different car, telling me he wanted us to have some time alone together. I appreciate it, but right now I almost wish he had stayed. "How did you find me?"

"Well, when I went back to the apartment, I didn't see you there. But someone else was there." I swallow thickly at the memory of the fear and anxiety that had surrounded me, wrapping me in its clutches when I saw Priscilla Martell and couldn't find my mother. It reminded me of being a child, lost in the grocery store without a hand to hold or a familiar face in sight. "It was my--one of the Martell girls. Priscilla Martell."

My mother grabs my hand with her own, her slender fingers cool against my palm. "Did she hurt you? Are you injured?"

I shake my head frantically. "No, not at all. She just told me about... About this will that said her father--my father--was going to leave me ten million dollars and a house in France, if he died of natural causes. I think she wanted to protect him, she wanted me to care about him and care whether he lives or dies."

A furrow forms between my mother's brows. Her voice rises, making the backseat of the car feel smaller, the air slowly draining out of it as though the walls are closing in. I turn to look out the window as she clutches my fingers tightly. "I spoke to your father just now. I went to him of my own accord to find you and he never told me a single thing about this will!"

"You went to see my father... to find me?" A strange sensation unfurls inside me, like a flower blooming. Or maybe it's a weed. A dandelion. Putting down roots and refusing to leave. "Yet all these years, you knew where he was and you never told me."

"I wanted to protect you." She sighs, rubbing her temples with her fingers, her nails unpainted. Bare.

"Well, you did a fantastic job." The laugh that erupts from my lips is harsh. After our tearful reunion, where I was so happy to see her safe and alive after getting myself worked up, I thought I could let go of the bitterness that had taken hold of me. But now, I'm not so sure. "Because clearly I've been running with a great crowd."

"Christina, come on. I did the best I could." Her voice is heavy with chastisement, like the lash of a whip.

My spine stiffens, my shoulders pulled back. "Did he ever send you money? For me?"

"A trust. To come into effect when you reached the age of twenty-five," she responds. Her quick honesty surprises me. Making me wonder what else was lying just beneath the surface, waiting for me to hear about it. To ask about it.

"And what would you have told me, if I never found out who my father was?" I fling my hands in the air, tennis bracelets clacking against each other on my wrist. "An inheritance from a distant relative?"

"I wasn't going to keep things from you forever. You don't understand how difficult it is to--" My mother stops herself when she sees the look on my face. I must look terribly betrayed. But all I feel is emptiness, a growing void that threatens to consume me. "Like I said before, Christina. Like it or not, I wanted to protect you and I did that as best as I know how. Do you honestly think it would be better for you to have grown up in that kind of environment? Surrounded by those people? They are thieves and murderers and prostitutes."

"You can't protect a child from everything," I say.

"I did all I could, Christina, what more do you want from me? Was I suppose to raise my only chid amidst a pack of wolves? I don't think so," she says, her voice quivering.

I feel bad, my heart dropping in my chest, twisting into unbearable shapes. I hate to hurt those I love. "I'm sorry, Mom. It's just that, ever since Antonio came into my life, it feels like everything I ever knew to be true was revealed as a lie. I don't know what to believe."

"You can believe in me," she says softly. "And you always have God."

Brushing away a tear, I sniff, knowing that's true. Even if it doesn't feel true, even if it feels like nothing at all--it's true. That's the thing about God's truth: it doesn't change, no matter what you make of it. "Thanks, Mom."

She wraps her arms around me, rubbing circles on my back and letting me rest my head on her shoulder, even though I've long since grown three inches taller than her. "Of course, Christina. I'll always be here for you."

My past and present are together in one room, and I have to say, it's not pretty.

Well, technically Dest--I mean, Lucia--and Christina are in the same room, and they're both conventionally attractive so I guess it is pretty on a superficial level. But obviously, that's not what I'm referring to. Though surprisingly it hasn't devolved into a full-on catfight either, which is almost disappointing.

"Christina Martell, this is Destiny," I say, gesturing between the two as though to cut through the tension slowly filling up the room like water in a sinking ship. "Destiny, this is Christina."

"We've met," Destiny says, turning a friendly smile on Christina. "How are you? I like your necklace."

"Thanks," Christina says, touching the diamond at her collarbone. It must be a gift from Antonio, just like the shoes she was wearing all that time ago. The thought no longer makes me burn with jealousy, but only pity wells up in my soul. Pity for what will happen to them, both him and her. "A lot of people have said that to me lately."

"Well, they have good taste." Destiny flips her hair over one shoulder, the brunette fading into a strawberry blonde. She turns to me with an expectant look. "Was there a reason you called this meeting or were you just expecting us to try and rip each other's extensions out, a la Real Housewives?"

"You know me too well," I say drily, but the truth is, she probably does.

Christina gives a nervous laugh, glancing between me and Destiny like the space contains explosives ready to detonate at any second. "I don't wear extensions."

Clearly the most important subject here, I think, but I don't say it out loud. "I want to take down Antonio Cavalli and I need your help to do it. Both of you, I mean."

"I know, that's the only reason I picked up the phone when you called," Christina says. "Thanks for calling my mother's house, by the way, now she thinks we might be back together."

"I like her," Destiny mouths at me over Christina's shoulder. I roll my eyes. Destiny always likes to keep me on my toes. "What's the real plan, then, Agent Black?"

"I want you to both get as close to Antonio as possible, find out everything about him and his business dealings, and report it back to me," I say. "I will set up a dead drop for information. No phones, no computers, no emails, anything like that I will not accept. Only handwritten letters--"

"What is this, the nineteenth century?" Christina mutters. "Are we supposed to seal them with wax and write them with quills?"

"I don't want us to get caught, Tina. You can burn paper. But someone can always hack into your phone or your laptop or whatever you're using. You want to get caught by the Cavallis, you go ahead and text me," I say. "But I'm only accepting notes, and you will leave a specific code word in each of them."

"Fine," Lucia says, a ruby choker shining at her throat. "So you want news about his business? Like, his meetings, who he's meeting with, names of the people,e locations, etc.?"

"All of those things, anything you could be important to the Cavallis," I say. Then I remember one more thing. "Oh! And Sebastian Cavalli. If you hear anything about Sebastian, I want you to let me know about that, too."

"On it, boss." Christina's voice drips with sarcasm. "Well, I have a date, so I'm going to go now."

No twinge of jealousy flares through me. But as Christina leaves the room, Destiny's eyes seem to be filled with it. I raise an eyebrow at her. "What?"

"You didn't tell me your ex was going to be here." Her voice is soft. Strange. Different. It's only then that I realize she sounds vulnerable. The whole time she was living with me, she put on this facade of a hardened stripper and a girl who was toughened up by the streets. She was that I guess. She is that now. But there's something else beneath the surface, like flakes of gold beneath stainless steel.

"She doesn't matter to me," I say. The truth is, she doesn't. I may have started this investigation because of her, but over time, I realized that I genuinely care about Destiny. I can't picture myself coming home to anyone else, and I really do miss her. My apartment feels empty without her in it. "You're the one I care about."

"Did I say I was jealous?" she snaps, but her eyes are full of something far more tender than anger. "Because I'm pretty sure I didn't."

"I could see it on your face," I say, going to hold her hand.

She pulls it away, touching the necklace she wears. Is it some kind of mafia rite of passage, to get expensive jewelry or something? "I'm wearing makeup on my face, not emotions."

"Are you referencing the Elise Estrada song?" I say, a frown pinching my brows. I only know it because my older sister played it nonstop during her high school breakups.

Destiny shakes her head, tension dissipating as she laughs. "How do you know that song? Actually, never mind. I don't need to know."

"That's not the point. I want you to know, Destiny or Lucia or whatever you choose to call yourself... You're the one I want. Not her." My voice breaks. I feel like a twelve-year-old boy again. "Okay?"

She rolls her eyes before kissing me on the cheek, her scent of lilacs engulfing me, but it's good-natured, playful. "Sure. Whatever."