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Something he doesn’twantto tell me, based onhistone.
My mind spins with possibilities. He’s in Philadelphia for an ER residency. A residency he convinced me would pay off—he’ll be able to save men he wouldn’t otherwise be able to, learning techniques he couldn’t anywhere else. What the fuck could have gone wrong? No one else knows he’s there.
“So, tell me.”
Alex inhales, the sound rustling through the phone’s connection. “She still lives here. And…she has a kid now.”
I focus on breathing, nothing else. In and out. Down the rest of my drink. The pronounshecould apply to millions of women, yet I know exactly who he’s talking about. There’s only oneshewhose name isn’t spoken between us because I shut that subject down a long time ago.
“You shouldn’t have gone back there.”
That’s all I can think to say. I swore when I left Philadelphia that I’d never look back. Nevergoback. Letting Alex return didn’t break that promise, but it opened up possibilities—this possibility—that I could have prevented.
Alex is silent.
I battle curiosity and lose. “Where did you see her?”
“She came into the ER this past weekend.”
I thought I’d succeeded at shutting down sappy emotional responses a long time ago. But my heart races, and my fists clench.
“Did she die?” I force the question out.
“What? No, she’s fine.”
I exhale with relief, then annoyance. “Don’t fucking make it sound like she’s not then. And if she’s fine, then what the fuck are we talking about? Did the baby die?”
“Fuck, no, the baby didn’t—” There’s a pause, then some muttered Russian I don’t catch. “There is nobaby. Lyla showed up at the ER on Saturday night. She sliced her hand and came in for stitches. I hadn’t decided if I was going to tell you or not. Then, she came here again this morning. I figured it was about you, that she had questions. I shut them down the best I could, but then she tells me she has an eight-year-old son. I got her address off the forms she filled out and went to her place as soon as I got off my shift. She lives in an apartment in East Falls. And the kid…she wasn’t lying. He—well, there’s no question.”
“No question about what?” My mind feels like it’s moving through sludge, overwhelmed and underprepared.
“He’seight years old, Nikolaj. No question about paternity. Kid couldn’t look more like you if he was cloned. It’s fucking crazy.”
I’m a father.
I have a son.
I have an eight-year-old son with Lyla Peterson.
Finding out my father and brothers were murdered in cold blood and I was inheriting a position I didn’t want wasn’t this shocking. Mafia life is dangerous and unpredictable. There’s always a strong possibility someone is trying to kill you. It’s a more primitive life, Darwinian almost. Only the strongest survive.
I locked down any softer emotions a long time ago. This revelation rattles the cage for the first time. Memories I haven’t allowed myself to recall for a long time flash through my mind. All featuring a brunette with a shy smile.
I try to picture it—a kid with some mixture of our features. Although, based on what Alex just said, he looks more like me than her. There’s been a miniature version of me walking around the world, and I had no fucking idea.
“Lyla knows nothing, Nikolaj.Nothing. She thinks you’re just a shithead who split on her. She just wanted to know if you’d care you have a kid—”
I hang up on him. Drop the phone on the floor and hurl my glass against the wall. It shatters, spraying splintered crystals and bourbon everywhere.
A shadow appears in the doorway before the blonde from my bed staggers in. I can’t remember her name. There’s a chance I never asked for it.
She blinks at me sleepily, taking in my heaving chest and the mess on the floor. “What’s going on?”
“Get out,” I snap.
“But I—”
“Get. Out.”
