“I left my phone at Mikhail’s penthouse,” I say before Aunt Marcelle can speak. “I don’t have it with me.” I pat my flat pockets to prove my claim before walking closer to Wynne, silently seeking the truth from her eyes.
She looks healthy, but I’ve been fooled before.
Even now, my mother still looks as fit as a fox.
“She’s okay, sweetheart. I promise you,” my mother assures again, cozying up behind me. “The doctors think she might have asthma. Her lungs didn’t fully develop before she was born, and the smoky conditions at the pub when I worked throughout her pregnancy made them worse.”
Asthma isn’t a walk in the park, but the diagnosis is better than expected, and I can’t help but sigh in relief.
The air I just released is sucked back in a hurry when the hairs on my nape stand up, my body’s ability to sense its mate even during a crisis still paramount.
Mikhail greets my mother with a relieved smile, but it’s chased away by confusion. Just like me, his eyes snap to the occupied hospital bed.
I see a million thoughts race through his head when he drinks in Wynne’s dark hair, icy-blue eyes, and strikingly gorgeous face. She has the features of a super model, and she’s only ten.
My heart launches into my throat when Mikhail briskly swallows half a second before he pivots on his heels and stalks out of the emergency ward.
This is exactly what I was worried about the past two weeks, and why even after the gala, I’ve kept secret on Andrik’s mistake.
“Mikhail, wait!”
After telling my mother I will be back, I take off after Mikhail. His strides are so long I have to jog to bridge the distance between us, and even then, it’s still too wide.
“It isn’t what you’re thinking. She’s not your child.”
Either not hearing me or deaf from the raging of his pulse in his ears, he continues walking.
“Can we please talk about this? It’s not what you’re thinking.”
My heart rate surges into coronary failure territory when he doesn’t head for the exit as anticipated. He enters the maternity ward at the speed of a bullet, and it catapults my panic.
I reach him as he flings open Zoya’s hospital room door. A sickening crunch sounds from the room when he slams his fist into his brother’s face. The power of his hit sends Andrik sprawling back and has him rearing up for a fight… until he realizes who the hit came from.
After wiping at the blood dribbling from his nose, Andrik tells the guard stationed outside Zoya’s room to stand down before he holds out his hands in a non-defensive manner. “Mikhail…”
Mikhail didn’t come here to talk. In a maneuver too quick for Andrik or the guard to ward off, he yanks a gun out of the guard’s holster and points it at the crinkle between his brother’s dark brows.
Zoya watches the spectacle unfold, unable to speak and somewhat contained since she is nursing Amaliya, and Andrik searches my face for answers since Mikhail’s impassive expression is unreadable.
I don’t know what he sees, but the truth settles on his face remarkably fast.
“It isn’t what you’re thinking.” Andrik’s words are calm despite the anger flaring his nostrils. He knows he brought this situation on himself, but at the moment, his only thought is the safety of his wife and daughter. As he moves so not even the dust of a ricocheting bullet could reach them, he says, “Wynne is not your daughter.”
Mikhail’s voice is on the opposite end of the spectrum. He sounds murderous. Villainous. “I know that.”
Andrik’s eyes shoot to me. Shock I got the situation so wrong is all over his face.
I shrug, a better defense above me. I thought he believed Wynne was his daughter.
I’ve never felt more confused.
Andrik’s eyes slowly return to Mikhail when he says, “I know that because Emerson wouldneverhurt me like that. She would never strip the blood from my veins while standing directly in front of me, pretending to love me.” The return of the hurt, scared boy I’ve been trying to protect the past two weeks forces tears to my eyes. “But you… my family… you would do that. You’d drain the blood from my heart if it meant you could skip the shit-fest they’d planned for you before you were born.” He grits his teeth as anger overwhelms him. “I was the one who saved you from that, Andrik!” His shout startles Amaliya, buthe acts oblivious. “I sat with you year after year, decade after decade, and faced countless forms of abuse, andthisis how you repay me. You stripped me of the one thing I loved more than life itself. You destroyed my fucking life.”
“No—”
Andrik’s denial agitates him further. “She was there, wasn’t she? She was at the church, for me.”
He chokes on a shocked breath when Andrik nods, digging his hole further. “Yes. She was there for you.”
