“Bullshit.”
“I don’t care what you believe. It’s my choice.”
“At the cost of repeating myself:Bull. Shit.”
Her lips press into a tight line. “Eli is Brad’s son. He deserves to have a father.”
“A father who beats his mother to a pulp?” My knuckles pop. “A father who’ll turn on him the second he screws up?”
“That’s none of your concern.”
“Like hell it isn’t,” I snarl. “I care about Eli. I?—”
“He was never yours, Yulian.” Mia’s hand clenches mine. “Just like I wasn’t.”
It cuts deeper than I thought it would. Loss. Heartbreak. I think back to that little boy in his room, glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling and that battered Garfield plushie held tight in his arms.
When exactly did I start thinking of Eli as mine, too?
And why does it hurt so fucking badly to let go?
“You’re lying.” I tip her chin up. It’s a bad idea to turn my back to an empty hallway, where the enemy could be lying in wait, but right now, I don’t give a shit. All I care about is searching for the truth in the sky blue of Mia’s eyes. “You’ve been mine since the day I met you.”
She swallows. I can feel her throat work against the back of my hand. “It’s over, Yulian,” she rasps. “It was never real. It couldn’t be.”
“I’ll decide what was real.”
“Yul—”
“I’m getting Eli,” I say. “Then you’re going to get in my car, and we’re going to talk at your apartment. You’re free to do whatever you want after that.”
Mia’s eyes widen with terror as I start turning back to the glass room. I follow the scared flick of her gaze, take a step towards the shadows?—
“I’m pregnant.”
And I stop.
Time stills. My breath, too, just below the sternum.
I turn back to Mia. “What?”
“I’m pregnant,” she blurts. “With Brad’s child.”
For a second, the world spins. “That’s a lie.”
“It’s not. I can prove it.”
“If Brad did anything to you, it would have been tonight.”And if that’s the case, he’ll wish he was dead.“That’s not long enough to get pregnant.”
“We’ve been meeting in secret,” she rasps in a dead, flat monotone. “Behind your back.”
“Have you now?” An angry vein starts pulsing at my temple. Of all the lies tonight, this one is the laziest, most disgusting one I’ve had to hear. “Tell me, when would that have happened? Where? I’ve had a camera at your door, a guard downstairs?—”
“The hospital.” Her hand has gone white around mine. “There’s an old supply closet no one uses.”
“You’re lying.”
“It’s on the second floor, right next to?—”
