“I was about to go ask him those questions.” She pulled back and lifted her gaze to his. “Will you go with me?”

Her red eyes didn’t plead with him. This was her battle and she was fully prepared to face her uncle on her own. But she’d asked, and he wanted to be there for her.

“Yes.”

Uncle Saul seemed to shrink in his chair.

“It’s true?” Gianna asked. “You’ve known all this time and didn’t tell me?” On the way to Saul’s suite she’d nearly convinced herself that he hadn’t known about her father. She’d started to believe that her father had hidden from everyone, but when she told her uncle about the DNA tests, she knew by his face that he’d lied to her for most of her life.

“That was him?” Saul’s voice cracked. “Richard was killed in that fire?”

“He was shot first,” Chris pointed out. “What in the hell was he doing there?”

“I don’t know,” said Saul.

“I don’t believe you!” Gianna shouted. “How could you lie to me for years and years? You lied to a child about her parents! Is my mother alive, too?”

Saul shook his head. “No, she was killed in the car accident.”

“That’s what you said about both my parents! I don’t know what to believe now!” Aware her legs were about to let her down, Gianna dropped into a chair across from Saul. She wanted to scream at her uncle and then crawl into his lap as if she were a child again. She gripped her hands in her lap; she wanted to pummel her uncle as hard as she could and then hug him and beg him to tell her that it wasn’t true. Chris’s hand squeezed her shoulder. Not a pansy-assed, gentle squeeze like he’d give to a damsel in distress. It was a painful grip; he was pissed.

“Start talking,” he said to Saul. “Start at the beginning. You knew it could have been Richard who died when the medallion was revealed, didn’t you?”

Gianna froze. Did Saul know yesterday?

“No!” Saul said. “I never connected the medallion with Richard. I didn’t know he had it. I assumed it would be found in one of the storage units with their things.”

His eyes pleaded with Gianna. “It never occurred to me. I figured Richard had vanished into Mexico again. I’m as shocked as you that he was here.”

She wanted to believe him.

Saul sighed. “I need a drink.” He stood and walked over to the wet bar in the suite. “Anyone else?”

Gianna was strongly tempted. “No. Is Owen here?” She didn’t want him intruding on something so personal. While they’d dated, she’d never discussed her parents with him, and she wasn’t about to start now.

Glass clinked behind the bar. “No. He isn’t staying here. He has his own room.” He met Gianna’s gaze. “Do you want him here for this?”

“Lord, no.”

“What happened to Gianna’s parents?” Chris asked.

Saul looked at Chris. “Do you want something to drink? You might as well pull up a chair, son.”

“No, thank you.” Chris grabbed a chair from the dining set and set it close to Gianna’s. She suspected he’d bitten back a retort to Saul’s “son” comment. That was Chris. Polite. But extremely direct.

Saul sat down and looked at Gianna. His face sagged, and he appeared to have aged ten years since he’d opened his suite’s door. “I love you, you know. You couldn’t be my daughter any more than if I’d fathered you myself.” His gaze was sincere.

“I love you, too,” she said from between clenched teeth. “But right now I want to hit something. And cry. I might do both.”

Saul took a drink and stared into his glass, swirling the ice in the alcohol. “Your parents wanted the best for you. My brother Richard was a fucking genius when it came to electronics.”

“I know.” She did know. Even before her parents died . . . disappeared . . . she’d been constantly told how smart her father was.

“He was a straight arrow. He couldn’t tell a lie to save his soul.”

Gianna made a choking sound, pain welling up in her chest. “You’re killing me, Saul.”

“He nearly died in that car accident, Gianna. He should have died. Instead he carried you for some of those miles to that house for help.”

Truth. All the dreams about someone helping her in the dark had been true. And it hadn’t been her uncle; it’d been her father.

“He did?” Her voice cracked.

“Yes,” said Saul simply.

“But the man at that house said Gianna was alone,” interjected Chris. Gianna glanced at him; his focus was on her uncle, but she wondered if he’d researched her past, as Violet had read up on his.

“Richard essentially left her on the doorstep,” agreed Saul.

“Why?” begged Gianna. Why would my father abandon me?

“He was protecting you the only way he knew how. They’d killed his wife and nearly killed him and you. Even with a severe head injury, he’d managed to do what he thought was right at the time.”

“A head injury?” Gianna thought hard, remembering the blood on her hands from that long walk in the night. Had some of it been her father’s? She’d had her own lacerations and blow to the head, which doctors referenced to explain away her odd recollections and the gaps in her memory.

“Are you saying the family was targeted?” asked Chris. “That the car accident wasn’t an accident?”