Page 23 of Jericho

"I fucking swear, Ricco."

"The baby was full term. During delivery, he swallowed something called meconium and it caused a nearly fatal lung infection. He was hospitalized for over a month."

"So the boy is mine?"

Silence fills the line for a long beat before he answers. "I'm saying the timeline works. I have no idea if this woman was the type to—"

"Ricco," I warn again.

"There are notes in the file written by the nurse that report the baby was born several months premature, and that caused the lung issue. I mean, the man wouldn't have to dig very deep to know the truth, but from the sounds of it, he trusted the hospital staff. Either that or—"

"He's known all these years and hasn't let on that he knows," I finish.

"Exactly. Listen, Damien Gaines is fucking evil. I've heard what he's capable of, and I wouldn't want to fucking cross him."

"I have a son," I whisper, more to myself than the man on the other end of the line.

"The timeline works out," he clarifies.

I don't growl at him again. I know the gift Aspen gave to me, and if I take a minute to think back on all the time we spent together, I know there's very little chance she was hooking up with someone else. As much as I'd like to think she was manipulating me the entire time I was lying to her about who I really was, I know better.

She was innocent despite the life she was born into. Maybe she was innocent because of it. Her father kept tight reins on her, and until I walked into his office that day with Damien ratting us out, Ivan Reese thought he'd warned enough men away from his daughter that no man was willing to cross that line. I wasn't just someone in his employ, however. It was my job to cross lines everyone else was too scared to even make eye contact with.

"Jericho?"

I end the call without another word, feeling like I have the weight of the world on my chest.

I let what I perceived as a betrayal keep me from her, keep me from my son. I let her endure God only knows how much pain and trauma. There's no telling what the boy has witnessed or the suffering he has endured in his lifetime, and all because she didn't stand up and wasn't willing to die for our love.

Sickness washes over me, my stomach twisting and turning to the point of pain strong enough to double me over right there in the fucking driveway of that small cabin.

I never checked up on her despite the hundreds of times I checked that fucking email, only to find it empty. I never went back to Boston because I convinced myself I hated her. I know there are still parts of me, even with this new discovery, that may always hate her.

I snap my gaze toward the crunch of gravel, releasing a sigh of relief to see the SUV driven by Hemlock with Lark in the passenger seat pulling up instead of one of Damien's goons.

Lark dips his head in acknowledgment as he climbs out of the vehicle before walking toward the front door.

"Not the news we wanted to hear," Hemlock says as he approaches me.

It was he who called Jersey and that I spoke with before Aspen dropped a bomb right in the middle of my fucking life.

"Eli Gaines is my biological son," I say.

Hemlock freezes in his tracks. "You're sure?"

I nod. "She has no reason to lie, and a contact dug up some information that proves it."

He frowns. "We should keep all details and correspondence within Cerberus."

"Yes, sir," I say, knowing I can't go back and I won't apologize for using my own resources.

"What more do you know?" I ask, knowing they had a team move in on the school where we had discovered that Eli was being held.

"There were twelve beds at that place. Well, thirteen if you count the single we suspect was used by whatever teacher or guard that was there. It wasn't much of a school. There were no books or the Internet. They didn't even have a television. Therewere four bedrooms, one for the adult and another three with two sets of bunk beds each."

"The guard we have inside says they have his daughter and have kept her from him for a long time. Last he spoke to her was six months ago," I explain.

"Shit," Hemlock mutters, grabbing at the back of his neck. It's a sign that he's trying to think of the best course of action to take, but I know the man is new to being in a leadership role. "The team is still there trying to determine where they could've been moved, but from what they can tell, they weren't moved today. It's not like Damien got wind that someone had Aspen so he called and made them leave."

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