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“Why should I trust you?” she asks.
The only one of my men not on the plane is Viktor, who’s now standing by the car. No one can hear us.
I meet her anxious gaze. “Because up until I found out I had a son, I was certain you’d be the only person I ever loved.”
Her lips part, but no sound comes out.
I never said the words to her. I didn’t know how suddenly and unexpectedly I’d leave, but I knew Iwouldleave. Saying those three words seemed selfish.
But I would have meant them. I felt them.
“I am theonlyperson that can protect you. And, yes, I get that’s ironic since I’m the reason you’re in danger. But it’s the truth.”
“Well,that’sironic. Because as far as I can tell, all you’ve ever done is lie.”
“I never lied to you.”
“You’re lying about loving me. If you ever did, you never would have come near us, knowing this could happen.”
She already shoved me. Yelled at me. And then Lyla does something else no one has dared to do in years.
She turns her back on me and walks away.
One last comment is hurled over her left shoulder. “I don’t want him to know who you are.”
CHAPTERNINE
LYLA
Leo’s worried face peers at me from the backseat as I open the car door. I watch him try to school the fear from his expression, and it feels like a fist is squeezing around my heart.
He’s trying to be brave forme.
I blame Nick for getting us into this situation. Alex too.
But I also blame myself. If I’d been more careful, chopping cucumbers—if I hadn’t gone back to that hospital in some pathetic attempt to track down a guy I should have forgotten about years ago—my son wouldn’t be looking at me like this.
“Come on, sweetheart,” I tell him. “Time to get out of the car.”
Leo climbs out of the fancy SUV. Glances at Viktor standing outside, who makes no attempt to hide either of the two guns he’s carrying. If he hadn’t possibly saved my life earlier, I would glare at him.
The fact that I’m even thinking that tells me I’m buying into Nick’s story—at least a little. For all I know, those men in my apartment could have been undercover cops, trying to arrest him.
Accepting Nick’s version of events means acknowledging Leo and I really are in danger. That people want to kill us now because Nick stood on the sidewalk outside my apartment for a few minutes.
It’s too terrifying to comprehend, so I focus on the more pressing matter at hand—introducing Leo to his father.
“Where are we going?” Leo whispers to me as we walk across the tarmac with Viktor trailing a few feet behind us.
“I don’t know,” I admit as we approach a plane just as sleek and luxurious as the car we rode here in.
Whatever illegal activity Nick is involved in, it’s obviously lucrative. People don’t risk their lives for what they could achieve otherwise, I suppose.
We reach Nick. He’s not looking at me. He’s staring at Leo like he’s trying to memorize every detail about him.
There’s a pang in my chest that rattles around like spare change. I imagined this moment—pictured it in my mind—many times after I found out I was pregnant. It’s a fantasy that’s faded over the years, worn out like an old photograph folded too many times, as Leo grew older and my memories of Nick became less vivid.
The similarities I see in myself to Leo pale in comparison to seeing him next to his father. They have the same color hair. The same eyes. The same proud profile. It’s mesmerizing and emotional.
