Page 54 of Runaway Queen

I stayed as longas I could at the hospital and only left when Leo was ready to sleep and the nurses were giving me looks. I drove home, my mind on the donor issue. The doctor had updated me that the tests were looking good so far but the most important results would come in a few days.

I pulled up at my house and stopped the car. It was dark already, but when I opened the door, I could hear the sounds of the ocean. Inside, I flipped on the lights and got rid of my coat and boots. I left my handbag on the counter and grabbed my phone. I checked the doors before heading upstairs. The back porch door gave me pause. Had it really only been a few nights ago when I’d run through there and locked it, expecting Nikolai to be advancing on me like a bloodthirsty demon from Hell? It had been. Renato’s words about him had done a number on me. He was right, though. I should be careful. Nikolai had told me time and again that he wasn’t the man I’d known. Considering how dangerous the man I’d known had been, it was a sobering thought.

I headed upstairs. While drifting down the hall, Leo’s door was ajar. I usually closed all the doors in the house, since the slightest draft seemed to make everything slam.

I went to close it and realized that the light was on inside.

I pushed it open slowly, my heart all but jumping to my mouth.

The bedside light was on, casting shadows around the walls.

Nikolai said in the rocking chair beside the bed, one of Leo’s stuffies in his hands. This one was a wolf.

He pinned me with his silver eyes as I stepped into the room.

“Have something to tell me, prom queen?”

20

SOFIA

Nikolai sat deathly still. One tattooed hand stroked the toy’s head. It was a deceptively calming movement. I could feel his menace and wariness from across the room.

While part of me, that part that had been terrified of my father my entire life, contracted with fear, the other part, the one that had fallen in love with this terrible, complicated man, eased. It was over. The lies were done. The chips would have to fall where they may. I had no control over that anymore.

“Come in, let’s talk.” His words were a quiet command.

I felt like I was falling from a great height as I walked into the room. His eyes were locked on mine, and I couldn’t tear myself away.

“So, talk,” he said after a moment, while I stared dumbly at him.

“It’s not Angelo and Chiara’s kid in the hospital,” he said. His prompt loosened my tongue.

“No, it’s not.”

“It’s yours. He’s yours. You didn’t think to mention it?”

“When? When you gagged me, or locked me in a coffin, or hunted me through the woods?”

My challenging tone sent one of Nikolai’s eyebrows up in a mocking expression.

“I guess I shouldn’t put too much stock in your assurances of honesty. Still telling lies,lastochka? How disappointing.”

His soft tut sent my color high.

“I was scared of my father.”

Nikolai sighed. “So what else is new?”

A bitter laugh left me. “Not like this. I’ve never been scared of Antonio like this.” I turned around and reached for a picture frame on the dresser. There weren’t many of them. Framing pictures was just another one of those domestic things I never seemed to get around to.

Now, I clutched the frame hard between my fingers and closed the distance between us.

Nikolai tilted his head back to keep me in sight as I loomed over him, my legs brushing his knees.

Just like in the past, when trusting this unpredictable, dangerous man had felt like jumping off a high cliff, with no certainty that I would reach the water, I hesitated on the edge. His gray eyes stared into mine. Steady. Just like his son’s. In that moment, my mind was made up.

I was done carrying this burden alone.

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