Page 8 of Flawed Revenge

“I know you wanted me to, but I'm not sorry that I didn't,” Kate continued. “I never could have forgiven myself for punishing my child just for existing when it wasn't them who did anything wrong.” Couldn’t have forgiven Leo for that either. It was hard enough to forgive him for suggesting it. “So I decided to keep the baby and raise her by myself.”

“Her?” Leo rasped.

“Her,” she confirmed. “My daughter is the best thing to ever happen to me, and I have never once regretted my decision. I don’t care if you're angry, you didn't get to decide that my daughter didn't get to live. She’s so beautiful, funny and smart, sweet and kind, she’s the best person I've ever known.”

“What's her name?” Leo asked, and she couldn’t make out from his tone how he was processing her bombshell.

“Ariella,” she said, somewhat reluctantly, because she wasn't sure if he would know that the name was of Hebrew origin and meant Lion of God. That she’d chosen it because Leo’s nickname had always been Lion, and she still needed her daughter to have a connection to her father, even if her father hadn't wanted her.

Obviously, it was too much to hope that he wouldn't know that.

“Lion,” he murmured. “You named her after me.”

“More than you deserved,” she snarled, the anger she’d harbored for a decade rising to the surface even as she knew that displaying it around these dangerous men was a bad idea. “I never intended to tell you about her. Not only did I know you wouldn't care, would probably be angry that I kept her, but she only deserves to have people in her life who will love and support her.”

Her daughter deserved the world, and it killed her that she couldn’t give it to her.

If there was any other way, she never would have come looking for the man who abandoned them both when they needed him the most.

But there was no other way.

“My little girl got sick three years ago. It took a while, but we eventually got a diagnosis. Aplastic anemia. Her doctors have tried everything, but Ariella isn’t getting any better. In fact, she’s getting worse. She’s dying, Leo. My sweet little baby is dying, and there’s nothing I can do to stop it from happening. Doctors say she needs a bone marrow transplant, but I'm not a match, and neither is anyone else in the family. That means you're her only hope. That’s why I'm here. I’d do anything for my daughter, even come begging for help from the man who didn't want her to exist.”

Chapter

Three

March 13th

1:50 P.M.

I’d do anything for my daughter, even come begging for help from the man who didn't want her to exist.

That his Katie-Bear hated him shouldn’t come as a surprise.

Nor should the fact that she’d ignored his orders and kept their baby.

Yet those words may as well be arrows shooting directly into his heart. While he’d spent the last decade loving her, missing her, hating himself for what he’d told her to do, she’d spent it raising their child all on her own. She’d only been nineteen when the baby was born, so young, yet she’d stepped up when he’d let fear rule.

If there was one moment in time Lion had always wished he could take back, it was the hateful words he’d spewed at her that day. Regret didn't even begin to describe how he felt about what he’d done, what he’d said. Even as he knew there was every chance that Dr. Gardner would have used Kate and their child as tools to manipulate him, he wished he’d kept the two close, found a way to break away from the program before he realized the depths of the scientist’s insanity and wound up locked inside a cage.

“I have a daughter,” he said, still not quite able to come to terms with that. Or with the bombshell Kate had just dropped. “And she’s dying.” That word tasted bitter in his mouth. Despite what Kate thought, he’d never wanted her to terminate the pregnancy. He’d been haunted by telling her that for ten years. At the time, he’d just been terrified that he wouldn’t be able to control the anger prowling inside him and would hurt his girl and their baby.

But in the end, he’d hurt them anyway.

Left Kate to fend for herself. Left his child—one she’d named after him—to suffer because of his absence from her life.

“I have a daughter,” Kate corrected.

While she was quite obviously terrified of him and his teammates, she was refusing to back down, and he was so proud of her for it. Maybe deep down she did know he would never harm a hair on her head and would kill anyone who tried.

“You lost all rights to call Ariella yours when you left us. You created a baby, that’s all, and now I need you to save her. I … can't lose her, Leo,” she said, her voice cracking, and fresh tears welling in her big, blue eyes.

“Of course I’ll get tested, donate bone marrow, whatever it takes, we’ll find a way to save your girl,” he assured her, hesitating briefly before reaching out and trailing his fingers down her arm. If Eagle had given Kate this address, then his boss knew about Ariella, which meant Eagle had likely already decided he’d spend whatever it took to try to save the little girl’s life.

Kate nodded, although it was clear she didn't quite believe him. If she thought he’d back out from agreeing to get tested, he couldn’t fault her for it. If she thought he’d do it, but it wouldn't work, he couldn’t fault her for that either. He had no idea how rough things had been for her as a single, teenage mom, and he would never forgive himself for pushing her into that position.

“Where is she?” he asked, both anxious and terrified to meet his daughter.