Ultimate Vengeance (Wanted Men Book 4)(64)

“I must tell you. But before I do, promise me you will try to understand how I felt. Please, Alekzander,” she begged as his expression grew more confused. And then wary. She stood on her toes and kissed the corner of his mouth, in case she never got the chance again. “Please know I never would have dreamed you would come to me like this. With the truth. I thought I knew the truth.”

“Sacha, what are you talking about?”

“The night I came to your office, I was going to tell—”

They both looked over when the door burst open and Maksim stormed in, his expression thunderous. Without hesitating, Sacha ducked behind Alekzander, seeking protection from that savage look. His hand pressed against her outer thigh and squeezed reassuringly.

“Maks. What the fuck are you doing? Give us a few more min—”

“No.” Maksim didn’t let him finish. “This can’t wait.” He glared beyond Alekzander, his silver eyes livid as they found hers.

He knew. He knew about Lekzi!

“No!” She reached out when he handed Alekzander his phone. “Let me tell him. Please!”

Maksim jerked the phone back and shook his head, his lips curled menacingly. She didn’t try again.

Alekzander moved over to cover her fully. “What the fuck are you doing, brother?” he growled.

Without a word, Maksim shoved his phone under Alekzander’s nose. “Read.”

He looked suspiciously between her and Maksim before bending his head. As he read, Sacha watched his profile. His eyes flared wide, his skin paled. His jaw tightened, and his chest started to rise and fall with choppy breaths.

She cupped her hands over her mouth and pressed her lips together to stifle a wail. Oh, no, no, no…

His head came up and swiveled in her direction in the eeriest of ways. What she saw then petrified her. Put to shame everything she’d felt this past year.

She’d been sulking.

He was enraged.





FIFTEEN




Hospital records.

Alek looked down at Maks’s phone again, and another shockwave tore through his system. He felt it travel up from his feet to his hair roots as if he were standing in water and holding a live wire. He tried like hell to make sense of what he was reading, but his mind was reeling at the speed with which he’d gone from euphoric to…this.

“The dates work,” Maks said, his tone gentler now that he wasn’t snarling at Sacha. “Explains the fear in her eyes, the alias, the daycare, why she fell off the map entirely.”

Because she’d gone into hiding.

He lifted his pounding head and looked at Sacha. Looked at her body. “A child?”

The guilt surrounding her was almost palpable. If he reached out, he’d have been able to touch it. He smelled it. Tasted it. Like scorched tar, the shit burned his throat so badly his eyes watered.

She’d had a baby?

His baby.

He looked at the phone again.

A girl?

He reread the info as an alarming pressure began to build within him.

DOB: April 23rd.

Time: 19:42.

Weight: 8 pounds, 6 ounces.

Length: 20 inches.

“I have…a daughter?” The pressure became intense, heavy, suffocating.

Sacha now held her clasped hands under her chin. A chin that had tears dripping off it from the tracks coming down her smooth cheeks. The liquid ran over her knuckles and down her dainty wrist.

She stepped forward as he tried to blink away the little explosions marring his vision. “I was going to tell you. Please let me expl—”

“Do I have a daughter?”

His roar bounced off the walls, and she tripped over herself to back up, her tears coming faster. He almost laughed. Her system wouldn’t be able to keep up with the moisture that would flow from those eyes before he was done with her.

Another second passed, and then her nod hit him like a wrecking ball. It smashed to pieces the image he had of his perfect angel. The one he needed to have of her. The one that made him strive to be good enough for her.

The sound of the door opening behind him barely registered.

“Get her out of here,” he said to Maks without looking away from her. “Get her out of this room before I do something we’ll all regret.”

“Alekzander,” she tried again.

“Now,” he whispered fiercely.

Without a word, Maks grabbed her purse and her elbow. But before he could get her the fuck to safety, Sacha yank way from him.

“No. I will not go away. No more. I let you explain yourself, and now you will let me do the same.”

His rasping breaths locked in his throat as his heart split wide open. His head spun and his eyes burned as they blurred. He was going up in flames. Flames of betrayal. Brutal, harsh, calculated betrayal. Brought on by who?