Page 51 of Scarlet Secrets

He’s what? Two? A fucking breakable baby.

And she kept him from me.

Sasha frowns, scrunching up his face in his sleep as one tiny, chubby hand opens and closes like he’s reaching for something that isn’t there.

But he doesn’t wake. And Olga’s in the corner, watching him, not looking at me, not saying a thing. Good. She knows better.

She did build a little pillow fort for him, so he can’t roll off and hurt himself.

Shit. I need baby crap.

I turn and stalk out because if I stay in here, I might not remember how to breathe.

This place isn’t exactly where I like to spend too much of my time, but it is, for want of a better term, home base. It’s fitted to be a stronghold. All the place needs are turrets, a moat, and my father’s fucked-up vision would be complete.

Funny. It wasn’t a home filled with happiness, love, and memories he wanted, but a fucking kingdom, a fortress no one could penetrate or escape from.

No one, that is, except one fucking female who has no idea of my world.

But instead of my Chicago duplex penthouse, this place is home base, the head of operations, and fills in all the other terms.

As I stand at the base of the stairs and peer up, the soft lighting and polished woods do nothing to warm me. Just like the guards outside and now dotted throughout the house on actual posts do nothing to assuage the thing that won’t settle inside.

This place is usually empty, and now it beats with life. Innocence, pain, and fury, they’re all here. Coming at me through the walls.

My sister with her shattered heart, the small toddler that’s part of me, his mother who no doubt wants my head on a pike. All of it fills and sings and chatters in the air.

As one of the guards posted at the bottom of the stairs risks a glance at me, I turn and stalk off to the downstairs office.

I dial the number, toss my phone now set on speaker onto the sofa, pour myself a Laphroaig, down the fine single malt, and pour another, just as Ilya answers.

“Demyan?”

“First thing, I need you to buy quality clothes—the whole gamut—and toys for Sasha.”

There’s a beat. “Who the fuck is Sasha?”

“Are two-year-olds toilet trained?”

“How the fuck do I know?” Ilya says. “Have you lost your fucking mind, boss, and kidnapped a kid?”

I finish the second glass and throw myself down on the sofa for a moment. “Sasha’s my son.”

There’s absolute silence. And then he says, “Your what?”

“My son.”

“Since when do you have a kid?”

“Since two years ago. And yeah, I just found out.” I switch to Russian. “I’m just as shocked as you, Ilya. That woman, Erin, had my kid and didn’t tell me about it.”

“Do you want a kid?”

“He’s mine,” I snap. “And she didn’t tell me.”

Ilya sighs. “A child is big, Demyan.”

“I know.”

---