Submitting to My Best Friend's Dad-Chapter 1031 : Blood in the Shadows

*Leo*

I had been a long time since I was in this abandoned warehouse.

I walked through the dimly lit corridor, my hands shoved into my coat pockets. Ahead of me, Franky and Darion were already waiting, their expressions grim.

"She hasn’t said a word," Franky muttered the moment I stepped beside them.

He tilted his head toward the one-way mirror, where Maria Moreira sat motionless on the other side.

"Yeah, she just walked into our territory like she owned the place and surrendered herself. No resistance. No hesitation. Nothing," Darion added.

"Hmm..." I touched the glass lightly.

I stared at the woman in the makeshift interrogation room.

She was younger than I expected. Late twenties, maybe. Her jet-black hair was tied back in a tight ponytail, her features sharp but calm.

Her hands were zip-tied behind the metal chair, but she didn’t seem bothered by it. She didn’t seem bothered by anything. She looked around the room as casually as if she’d been invited in for a business meeting.

"I don’t like how relaxed she is. It’s like she wants to be in there," I muttered.

"We have men posted at every entrance and I already have a team trying to trace back her movements," Franky offered with a nod.

I stroked my chin and continued to watch her. My stomach twisted.

Franky and Darion had taken every precaution but this still felt... off.

"Why would she turn herself in?" Darion asked. He crossed his arms. "This woman runs one of the biggest drug distributions in the city. She outplayed us, outplayed the Angels, and then just—what? Surrenders?"

"Something’s off," Franky added, his jaw tight.

"Agreed." I nodded.

I watched her shrug her shoulders and blow a puff of air out of the corner of her mouth.

She had to know she was in for an interrogation. Why was she so casual and relaxed?

All I could think was that she was exactly where she wanted to be.

"Secure the building," I said.

Franky turned to me. "Already did. The place is locked down, only our best men are here. She’s restrained, no weapons, no contraband. We searched her three times over. She’s clean."

"Not good enough. Triple-check it. I want every guard alert, every exit watched. No mistakes," I insisted sharply.

Franky gave me a look, but he didn’t argue. He gestured to Darion.

"I’ll take care of it," Darion assured. He hurried off down the hall.

"How do you want to play this?" Franky asked. He came up beside me at the mirrored window.

"I’ll talk to her."

"Leo, that’s probably what she wants. We can’t give her that."

I shook my head. "Normally, I’d agree. She’s expecting us to play by the rules. We need to keep her off balance."

Franky sighed and ran a hand through his air. "Alright. I’ll watch from here. If she even twitches in a way I don’t like, I’ll have our boys come in."

I shucked. "Fine. Do me a favor, video everything. I want to playback her reactions, body language, everything."

"You got it." Franky pulled out his phone.

I took one last look at Maria through the glass, inhaled deeply, then opened the door.

She didn’t react as I stepped inside. Didn’t lift her head, didn’t flinch. Just sat there, waiting.

I pulled the chair out across from her and sat down, my hands resting loosely on the table.

"You wanted to see me," I said.

For a moment, she was silent. Then, she tilted her head slightly, a ghost of a smile on her lips.

"Hello, Leoncito," she murmured. "It’s been a long time."

I frowned. "My name is Leo."

She shrugged. "Alright then, Leo. Have it your way."

"What do you mean, ’it’s been a long time?’" I narrowed my eyes.

"You don’t remember me?" she pouted.

"No..." I tilted my head to the side and studied her for a moment. There was no doubt in my mind that I’d never met this woman.

"Figures," she muttered. "You were young."

Something cold tightened in my chest. "You act like we know each other," I said carefully. "Like this is personal."

Maria finally looked up, her dark eyes locking onto mine. "Because it is."

I kept my face blank, but inside, everything tensed.

"I know who you are. You’re Maria Moreira. You have a long list of crimes attached to your name. Drug trafficking, assault, connections to the Angels. You worked for a gang that disappeared years ago. But that doesn’t tell me why you’re here, why you’ve been chasing me."

Maria leaned forward slightly, as much as she could with her hands tied behind her. "I was hoping you’d remember, but I guess not."

"Remember what?"

She exhaled through her nose, looking me over, searching for something. Then, her lips curved into something almost like sorrow.

"Our parents," she said.

A quiet, deadly pause filled the air.

I barely blinked. "Parents? Yours and mine?"

"Yes. The ones who left you in that alleyway." She nodded.

A chill ran through me. The memory of cold pavement, of hunger, of being alone—it slammed into me like a punch to the ribs. I had never known their names. Never cared to.

They left me to die in an alley.

I knew Maria and I were related but we couldn’t be... siblings, could we?

"You’re lying," I said flatly.

Maria shook her head. "No. I’m your sister, Leoncito. Your older sister. By one year."

I gritted my teeth, my hands clenching against the table. "I don’t have a sister."

Her smile was sad. "You do."

I wanted to call her bluff. Wanted to tell her she was insane. But deep inside, something twisted—something that whispered that she might be telling the truth.

Still, I wasn’t giving her an inch. "If that’s true, then tell me, why the hell have you been trying to kill me?"

Maria’s face darkened, her expression unreadable. "Kill you? I don’t want to kill you, Leo. I want my little brother back."

The sheer sincerity in her voice knocked the air from my lungs. I couldn’t speak.

"You were taken from me. We were born into a terrible world where children were nothing but tools for power. Our parents were monsters, part of the gang that ran these streets before the Valentinos, before the Angels."

She hesitated, then pressed on.

"Our mother made a deal to have a son with the Boss of that gang in exchange for power. That son was you." She smiled lightly.

I glared at her and crossed my arms.

This had to be a lie. If my father was the Boss, how had I ended up abandoned in an alley? This wasn’t adding up.

I set my elbows on the table and locked my fingers together. With narrowed eyes, I rested my chin on my interlocked fingers.

"I find that hard to believe. What kind of Boss would abandon their child, even if I was illegitimate."

"That’s because you don’t know the whole story yet." She gave me a challenging look.

"Fine, tell me the rest." I held a hand out to her and motioned for her to continue.

"You were our parents’ leverage. I was just another pawn. They forced me to watch over you because your safe keeping meant more power for them. And I did. But then... you got sick."

"Sick?" My throat felt tight.

A faint memory of lying in bed with a cold cloth on my head and chicken soup in my lap surfaced.

I rubbed the back of my neck. All kids had memories of being sick, didn’t they? I barely had any memories from my childhood, let alone before the alley, but kids got sick all the time.

Maria made it sound like my sickness was serious.

I didn’t have anything in my medical records to indicate a prolonged period of illness as a child.

"Sick how?" I questioned.

"A fever," Maria clarified. "It got worse and worse. No doctor could figure it out. Mom thought you’d get better but it went on for years and by the time you were five, it wasn’t something she could keep hidden."

My throat constricted and my spine stiffened. "Why would she need to hide me being sick?"

"Because the Boss, your father, saw you as weak, a liability. He ordered you to be eliminated when he found out."

A heavy silence filled the room. I felt like the air had been sucked out of my lungs.

It shouldn’t have been a surprise but I still couldn’t wrap my head around the family history I never knew I had.

"I wouldn’t let them hurt you, though! I made a plan to get both of us out of that life."

I scoffed.

"You don’t remember what it was like! I was only six or seven and already being used as a drug mule. I had no friends my age, the full responsibility of a job, and I was always being watched. I couldn’t live like that!" Her voice broke slightly.

Maria leaned as far across the table as she could with her arms bound behind her.

"I was going to get us out. We both deserved a better life, a normal life."

Yeah, I couldn’t argue with that. I’d seen what some gangs did to kids and it was brutal.

"We were on our way out, but our parents found me. They took me back and they left you in that alley to die." Maria bowed her head.

I took a long slow breath and let everything sink in.

There was a large part of me that didn’t want to believe it, but the DNA said otherwise.

Maria leaned back, studying me. "You don’t remember any of this?"

I swallowed, my throat dry. "All I remember is the alleyway. Being alone."

She closed her eyes for a moment. "Then they won."

The words settled heavily between us.

For the first time, I didn’t know what to say.

Maria inhaled sharply, steadying herself. "After that, I did the only thing I could. I brought them down. I sold them out, destroyed the gang from the inside. And when I was finally free... I spent years trying to find you."

I stared at her, my pulse hammering. "Then why all of this?" I gestured around us. "The drugs, the chaos? Why come after me like this?"

Maria gave me a pained smile. "Because you don’t know who you really are. And I need you to remember."

I shook my head, gripping the table. "I don’t care about the past. I’m not that kid anymore."

She sighed. "I know. But you’re still my brother."

Before I could respond, she moved—too fast.

Her wrists flicked, and suddenly, the zip-ties around her hands snapped free.

I was already pushing back, reaching for my gun, when the lights flickered—then cut out completely.

In the darkness, I felt her grab my arm, her voice barely a whisper in my ear.

"You need to come home, Leo."