Page 183 of Deceitful Vows

I can handle the fallout of her mistake, but only if the crumble of my demise doesn’t affect our son. “He is a child. You cannot hurt a child. Have a fucking heart.”

“So you admit it?” Maksim shouts, his nostrils flaring. “You admit you ignored my direct order to keep this type of shit out of Myasnikov Private?”

“Yes,” I lie, willing to fall onto the knife for Zoya. I shift my eyes back to Henry, once again confident he is the more stable of the duo. “I didn’t have a choice. My son was going to die.”

“Then you should have given himyourheart!” Maksim snarls, returning my focus to him. “You shouldn’t have ordered the murder of an innocent child?—”

“He didn’t.”

“No!” I scream when Mikhail enters the operating theater from the entrance the doctors used to escape. He didn’t get here easily. He’s bleeding from an obvious bullet wound in his midsection and his body is housing numerous bruises. But he is standing—just. “Stay out of this, Mikhail. This hasnothingto do with you.”

Blood smears his teeth when he gives me a look as if to say,She’s my sister, so she’s my responsibility,before he throws himself into the fire without the slightest bit of coverage to protect him from an inferno hot enough to melt his skin off his bones. “I sent the email. It was me.”

“He’s lying,” I deny, moving half of the lights dotting up his chest back to me.

He’s pissed, and I hear it in his tone. “What reason do I have to lie, Andrik?”

“Because you’re trying to protect her like you think you failed to do twenty-eight years ago.” His silence speaks volumes. He’s also willing to fall on the knife for Zoya. I just refuse to let him. “You didn’t fail her, Mikhail.Yourfather did. If you want to blame anyone, blame him.”

“Zoya is my baby sister! It was my job to protect her.”

“Zoya?” Maksim stammers out, his confusion as paramount as his anger. “What has she got to do with this?”

“Nothing,” I snap out before glaring at Mikhail in silent warning to keep his fucking mouth shut. Henry is here to take down the federation. That automatically drags Zoya into the mess because she is a Dokovic as my father announced.

I am the one missing the royal blood the federation was desperately seeking to reestablish when they stole Zoya’s eggs.

My father didn’t lie when he said my mother fooled them all. She had them so convinced that I was a Dokovic, by the time my true birthright was exposed, the public had already fallen in love with the idea of me being their future president.

My family’s reign would have toppled if the secret ever got out, so the federation buried the evidence before putting in plays to eventually smooth out the kink my existence caused.

Aleena’s prime fertility record made her their first pick, but just like Stasy, her age went against her. She suffered numerous miscarriages before news of Zoya’s egg donation reached someone high up in the federation.

Aleena carried that surrogacy without incident.

Zakhar was stripped from her seconds after birth and given to his grandmother to raise. The parts between his birth and his introduction to my life were above Dr. Leverington’s pay grade.

I will get answers, but it will take time.

Time I don’t have if the raised voices outside the operating theater are anything to go by.

Law enforcement has arrived, and they don’t seem as willing to seek answers as Henry is.

“Bring them with us.”

When one of Henry’s goons approaches me, I shift the direction of my gun to his head. “Donottouch my son.”

“Andr—”

“No,” I growl, cutting Henry off with the rumble of a madman. “He will die without proper medical assistance.” I shift my eyes to Maksim. “The host of the heart you came here to collect is already dead. Don’t make my son suffer the same fate.” After recalling the promise he made to Zoya before he wed her best friend, I have no choice but to toss her into the fire with me. I will get her out, as I will Zakhar and Mikhail, but when you’re clutching at straws, you have to let some guards down. “Don’t make Zoya’s son suffer the same fate.”

Mikhail gasps in shock as Maksim calls me a liar.

He eats his words when I snatch up Zakhar’s medical chart and thrust it his way. I told Zakhar the truth as the doctors were sedating him, not wanting him to face the possibility of going to his grave without knowing the true identity of his mother. The nurse updated the parental details of his patient record as he was wheeled into the operating theater.

It is there, in thick black ink for the world to see.

Zakhar handled my confession better than Maksim does. He groggily muttered that he knew there was more to Zoya turning down his offer to be his girlfriend than a difference in age before the anesthetics took hold.

---