“It is but there was never the question. Do I get to call you my boyfriend?” I ask and he chuckles, I feel it in his chest, the compression. It’s soothing.
“Anytime you want, girlfriend,” he winks at the end, I drift off to sleep in his warm embrace surrounded by equally warm water. And for the first time, I didn’t need the gun within my reach.
Chapter 14
Dominik
Getting Rian back was harder than I’d wished it would be, it made me resort to Aiden Javol. What Josh forgot to mention was that he was Love’s hero, and was invited to stay with us for an indefinite amount of time. Fucking pain in the ass.
He walks around with his creepy cat who only seems to like him and Love. How lovely. The universe is playing a hell of a joke on me. I hold my breath before leaving the house. The boys have a target that needs to be erased, they need me to go undercover on the spot, at the casino. Apparently the guy already knows Josh and no one else volunteered. I’d never say no to killing someone who had it coming anyway so I hopped in.
“Dominik are you ready?” Aiden asks, he’s leading the operation and probably planning my ‘accidental’ death. I just nod entering the casino they’re seeing me from the cameras, “He’s in room 5,” he says in his “charming”Mitkus accent, as Maya would say. I wonder if Love thinks so too.
“Abort mission,” I whisper when I see Stephanie standing by the bathroom door. I say and proceed to throw my camera, microphone and auricular to a garbage can, before walking in Stephanie’s direction. She made several attempts at trying to contact me, from several numbers, on several different phones, from several different locations.
“What do you want, Stephanie?” I ask and she starts shaking. Stephanie doesn’t shake.
“After everything that happened I only get that?” she asks pushing her luck, she knows I don’t hit girls, she plays this game where she tries to take me over the edge and make me break my rule.
“Do you prefer ‘get the fuck out of here and exit my life?’,” I question, Stephanie laughs.
“I missed that,” she says, “I missed you, I mean,” she says and attempts to touch me.
“You have about five minutes until the security team comes in,” I warn her and she doesn’t move.
“I only need one,” she says her amber eyes glimmering, she has something on me. She’s here to blackmail me. “I got pregnant two and a half years ago. I hid it from you because you wanted nothing to do with me. My daughter is now starting to notice a missing piece in her life, her father. And unfortunately, it’s you,” Stephanie speaks and let’s admit I wasn’t expecting that. Is it true? It has to be bullshit. “This is her,” she shows me a photo of her and a 1-year-old baby whose eyes look exactly like mine. Can’t be. “We were a lie to you Dominik, notme. But I was never the woman to hold a man against his will with a child,” she says and she sounds sincere. I look at the baby better. It has to be AI. Her hair is a dirty blonde almost brown like Stephanie’s but with blonde highlights of my hair tone. Her eyes, strikingly green, greener than mine, and that’s saying something.
I look at the photo and almost fall to my knees. “She’s at the parking lot with Layla,” Layla her best friend, of course she had to be here. This can be a far-fetched scheme to kill me but I need to see the baby by myself, know it isn’t true. Stephanie knows how much I valued having a family and being a father, I wanted it more than anything in the world, she can absolutely and most likely be tricking me. “Follow me if you want,” she whispers and I do follow her.
I follow her until the back parking lot and Layla gets outside a black BMW with a baby, and her eyes. It needs to be fake. I move closer and see the baby smiling at Stephanie, she’s real. “I want a paternity test”
“I expected no less,” Stephanie says, yet I need to know now.
“Can it be now?” I ask Stephanie and she nods. “I know someone who’ll do that,” I whisper my voice breaking. I’m a dad. I’m a dad and I’ve been neglecting my child and trying to get my daughter’s mother killed. Worst father of the year award goes to no other than the man who swore he’d be better than his father, and do ANYTHING for his children.
I pick up my phone when we enter her car and I tell her the hospital’s name. They drive there and Damian is already waiting for us outside, he’s the only one whoknows what’s happening. I don’t have the guts to tell anyone, at least not now. Not until I know for sure.
“Ian, tell me you have everything ready,” I whisper to him entering the hospital with Stephanie, Layla and the baby.
“I do, but it’ll take 24 hours,” Damian says and I assent, I looked online at the timing and it usually takes several days, so he’s really rushing it.
“No one can know I’m here,” I beg him and this time he’s the one to accept.
“Got it,” he says and leads me to a blood drawing place, “So what are we hoping for?” Damian asks me and Stephanie looks damingly attentively at me.
“For a hell no,” I say and after my blood is drawn I go outside trying to distance myself from the baby, my heart accelerating beyond repair. I might actually have a heart attack right here, thankfully I’m already at the hospital so I will most likely not die and leave this child fatherless.
I take hold of the third cigarette in years and am about to light it when I see Love parking her car in front of the hospital.
I go back inside not ready to tell her. ‘Hey, I’m a father, still want to date me?’.
I go to Stephanie’s side after Karl says Stephanie has a flight planned for the other side of the world.
“What are you planning, Stephanie?” I ask her in the waiting room, the baby starts crying. Stephanie tries to soothe her but she doesn’t look very motherly.
“You did a check on me and found the tickets,” she saysunbothered that she was caught. “I’m leaving, Dominik. For good. I can’t take her with me. She’d be in danger. You’re the only one I trust in,” she says and I breathe in relief.
“So she’s not my child?” I ask her and she shakes her head, I’m about to warn Damian so he talks to the lab but Stephanie holds my hand away from the phone. “It’s your brother’s”
