I shoot up to a standing position. “Are you insane? Give your DNA to the most corrupt officer you’ve met? My god, you’re lucky you’re in your office or I’d smack you up the head.”
The quiver in Isaac’s breath exposes he doesn’t appreciate me questioning him, but for once, I don’t back down. He pays me for exactly this: to keep him and his empire in safe hands.
“You have no reason to grant her request. You know Jeremiah isn’t your son. Theresa knows Jeremiah isn’t your son—”
“Isabelle doesn’t.”
My heart does an elongated beat when the truth finally smacks into me. He’s not calling me to update me on Theresa’s visit to his office last night; he wants me to ensure him he’s not an idiot.
Tears prick my eyes when I quote what he said to me during one of my darkest days. “Don’t be ashamed to lose your pride to someone you love; be ashamed you let your pride lose someone you love.”
I move into the kitchen, ensuring my next set of words aren’t overheard. “It’s okay to forgive, Isaac. It won’t make you weak—”
“I’m not worried about that.”
Pretending I can’t hear the mistruth in his reply, I ask, “Then what are you worried about?”
A stretch of silence teems between us. It is awkward and plagued with tension.
Just when I think Isaac will never answer me, he murmurs, “Callie.” An office chair squeaks before he says, “I can’t stop thinking about what will happen to her if I don’t continue with my plans. I can’t just forget she exists.”
“Then don’t. Feelings don’t automatically switch off when someone deceives you. The connection you have with that little girl is real, Isaac, probably the realest you’ve had. Don’t ignore it because you’re wary of someone’s intentions. Trust them, your gut, and yourself. They’ve never steered you wrong before, so why would they when you need them the most?”
Another stint of silence passes between us. This one isn’t filled with the same awkwardness as earlier, but with mutual respect and understanding.
“Let me see this through, Isaac? Please.” I don’t know why I’m pleading on behalf of a little girl I’ve never met; there’s just something advising me this is the right thing to do. “Once she’s safe and out of harm’s way, you’ll have a better idea of the next step you want to take.”
Isaac murmurs something, but with my pulse ringing in my ears, I miss what he says.
“Yes?” I’m certain I know him well enough to know which path he wants me to travel, but there’s no harm in checking.
“Yes,” he confirms. “Just keep it on the downlow. After my arrest, I can’t be associated with Vladimir in any way. That’s one shroud I don’t want draped over my empire for the rest of eternity.”
Although he can’t see me, I nod. “All our negotiations are on behalf of an entity, but I’ll ensure your name stays out of it.”
After a few more details, I end our call as somberly as I started it, with a promise to do everything in my power to see him through this.
My heart leaps into my chest when I dump my cell phone onto the kitchen counter then spin around. Raquel has her shoulder propped on the doorjamb of her kitchen with a burping cloth in one hand and an empty bottle of formula in the other. The phony smile she has on her face indicates she heard my conversation, but the unease in her eyes leaves no doubt.
“Don’t,” I warn when her lips twitch as she prepares to speak. “My situation is nothing like Isaac’s.”
She shakes her head before dumping the bottle in the sink and the dirty washcloth in a basket of milk-soiled clothing she’s preparing to take to the laundry room. Her silence is more telling than her words. Raquel is just like me; she has no issues calling it how she sees it. Although I’d like to pretend motherhood has made her soft, I’m confident it’s had the opposite effect. Axel didn’t squash her determination; it doubled it, as now Raquel not only refuses to fail herself, she refuses to fail her son as well.
“He used me, Raquel.” I bite on the inside of my cheek, hating the whine delivered with my words.
“For what, Regan? A sixty-thousand-dollar-a-year paycheck?” She laughs while spinning around to face me. “He would have gotten more out of you if he knocked you up.”
When I scoff, acting as immature as her ridiculous statement, her brow arches high. “I saw the bonus check Isaac handed you last Christmas; that would keep an FBI agent warm for decades to come.” She pats my arm the way our mother always does when she wants us to listen. “Talk to him. Things may not be as you believe, but you’ll never know if you keep your head stuck in the sand.”
I’m about to bite back that she should follow her own advice with Axel’s daddy, but I leash my retaliation. Her situation is completely different from mine. She’s not keeping his birth a secret; she just has no way of reaching out to his dad.
“I’ll think about it.” I nearly gag, annoyed I’m succumbing to pressure. The only thing I want to surrender to is my libido and the orgasms it’s been holding back the past twelve months, not my annoying baby sister glaring at me with remorse in her eyes.
She stops peering at me when Axel’s little cry breaks the silence teeming between us.
“Do you want me to get him?” My question comes out more as a plea.I hate when he cries.“He sounds like he needs his Aunty Rae-Rae.”
Glee dashes down my spine when Raquel answers, “You can cuddle him to sleep.”
