AllFreeNovel
Share Us
Is he implying I lied to him?
My broken heart feels bruised. Ruined.
I stare at the paper in his hand but could recite the words from memory.
Though we’re apart, I will always, always love you.
The note thatIwrote for my baby.
I shove his hand away. He stumbles as I push past him. I don’t want to talk to him. I don’t want to talk to anyone right now.
“Don’t you fucking walk away from me?—”
“Watch me.”
If he thinks he can hold me in the palm of his hand then crush me on a whim, he’s woefully wrong. So, so fucking wrong. How could I have ever been vulnerable with a man like him? Never again.
I’ve always run when I was under pressure. But there’s a reason for that.
This time, I have nowhere to go, but it doesn’t matter.
I was foolish for thinking I could ever be vulnerable with a man like him. I storm down the stairs that will take me back to Ivy.
I have to see her. I have to hold her. Touch her. See with my own eyes that she’s okay.
“Harper, if you walk away?—”
I don’t bother facing him and flip my middle finger off at him. “Fuckoff.”
So my family played him. They ran away and didn’t give him his goddamn money. I’d feel bad about how they used him if I didn’t know for a fact that it isn’t money he needs but a wife and children. Puppets. Tokens.
His heavy footsteps follow me.
“Harper—”
I enter our bedroom and open the connecting door to Ivy’s room, finding her sleeping peacefully. I release a breath I didn’t know I was holding.
I turn and shut the door between us, locking it.
He could open it. He has the key. He could break it down if he wanted to be a dramatic douchebag. I listen for him but can only hear him cursing on the other side.
“This isn’t fucking over,” he growls in a low voice, likely so he doesn’t wake Ivy.
Oh, it is, though, Aleks. It so fucking is.
I turn to face her.
Ivy’s safe. For now.
I’m not, but I will be.
I fucking will be.
I don’t need Aleksandr. I don’t need his protection.
I climb into bed beside Ivy and make a mental inventory of the weapons I’ve secretly secured, due in no small part to Nikko’s assistance and, unbeknownst to Aleks, his as well.
I lie down next to Ivy and brush my fingers through her hair. “Shh, baby,” I whisper when she mumbles in her sleep. “Rest. Mama’s gonna take good care of you.”
