Page 23 of Hidden Heir

I leave him to it, trusting in his crew’s ability to get the stock where they need to be, and head back to the estate. Normally I’d stay longer and do a closer check of the product, but we haveenough checks in place along the route to ensure that only the best, healthiest people move on to be sold. I’ve made a lot of changes since I came into power, but the main one is making sure people don’t stay in the same place longer than twelve hours. We don’t need anyone thinking they can make a run for it.

But Brooke is more of a pressing concern for me right now. I have a lot of questions that need answering. They swirl around my mind as I finally arrive home and seek her out in the kitchen.

She stands with her back to me, her hair scooped to the side over one shoulder, her attention on her child. She’s dressed in jeans and a loose flannel, and my heart squeezes at the sight of her, but I know I have to hold myself back.

I need answers.

“Brooke?”

She tenses up like a board and slowly glances over her shoulder. “Hi.”

“You owe me some answers.”

10

BROOKE

Idefinitely do.

I turned up on his doorstep with nowhere else to go, having not seen him in four years, and he took me in without question. He helped care for my daughter, gave her a place to sleep, and then cared for me like we had a much deeper history beyond just a random fuck in a club four years ago.is

“You’re right,” I say softly, sitting next to Tiff at the kitchen island while she eats her breakfast of granola, fruit, and yogurt. “I just don’t know where to begin.”

Leon stands in the doorway with his arms crossed. There are slight shadows under his eyes, and I’m not sure he’s even slept. He was gone when I woke up. In truth, I expected to be back in my apartment, the horror from the night before nothing more than a nightmare that ended in a dream in Leon’s arms. But I woke up in a bed more comfortable than anything I’ve ever slept on, with my daughter by my side. She was so excited to be in a fancy new place, all of her fear and upset from the night before seemingly forgotten.

She is strangely enamored with Rik, the man who follows me like a ghost through the house, only leaving the kitchen once Leon appeared, after untangling himself from Tiff’s hands.

My daughter’s resilience is quite impressive.

“Have you eaten?” Leon asks.

“No. I just made some breakfast for her.”

“Do you like French toast?”

I nod and Leon gets to work. He moves around me as if this is a dance we’ve danced a hundred times before, getting out eggs, milk, vanilla, cinnamon, and bread. As he works, I subtly keep myself between him and Tiffany because despite everything, Leon is still a dangerous man.

Perhaps the most dangerous.

Four years ago, he was just a sexy, nameless hunk that was so gorgeous I thought nothing of fucking him in the alley behind the club. And then again in the bathroom stall when we couldn’t get enough of one another. He was just a guy, with miles of muscle and a sexy smirk that made my heart melt and my core ache.

Until I saw him on a news report the following day, standing next to the tyrannical criminal kingpin Kreik Koval. The report stated that Koval had once again walked away from airtight murder charges. To this day, I still remember the way my stomach fell when I googled Koval and learned of his son, Leonity.

Leon.

My Leon.

The sexy, mysterious, best-sex-of-my-life club fuck was the son of a man suspected of building the most brutal and successful criminal empire New York had ever seen. Nothing was ever proven, of course, and that was the catch. A man that dangerous was far too slippery. He greased all the right palms, often going to court simply for the satisfaction of walking awayfree. Some reports claimed his son was just as dangerous, if not worse.

Sleeping with a criminal would have been hot if the crimes listed weren’t so horrifying. I didn’t sleep for a week, terrified that he would turn up on my doorstep and demand more from me, the full weight of his criminal family backing him up.

Six weeks later, I discovered I was pregnant with Leon’s baby.

It was the scariest moment of my life. I spent three days locked in my apartment sobbing over the terror that gripped me and the uncertainty over what to do. It was one thing to have a baby with a stranger, but quite another to have the baby of someone so dangerous. I was haunted by the thought that he would take me and my baby, immersing us into the terrible, dangerous world he thrived in. People died daily from gunshots, drugs, stabbings, and worse. One article claimed there was no humanity in the Koval family. Other articles stated they would sell their own children if it meant getting a more substantial profit on drugs.

Seeing what drugs had done to my brother was scary enough. I couldn’t stomach the thought of raising a child in that world. I’d rather die.

So I stayed hidden. I buried myself in my work, moved to the other side of the city, and never went out clubbing again. He only knew my first name but for a long time I was certain he’d be able to track me down.

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