Page 69 of Scarlet Secrets

I’ve known him for what… a day or two and I feel closer to him than I ever did with my father. It’s insane. It’s right.

How crazy that from this tragedy Erin’s back in my life and with her my son. I couldn’t have planned something like that.

I go still.

Planned?

If Niko had enough foresight to ruin my sister’s wedding, shoot it up, kill the groom and kidnap her, then he could have planted Erin. After all, maybe they weren’t trying to kidnap her with Alina, but take her with them since she was part of it all.

I’m being insane, crazy, I know this, but now that the thought is there, I can’t shake it.

Because what if he isn’t mine and I’m just seeing what I want to see. I get up, stumbling back, my heart twisting with love for the boy, and I instinctively know if anyone wanted to hurt me, you attack through the one vulnerability I have.

Love.

It’s very specific. Narrow. Until now it’s been Alina and look at what happened there. Alina is innocent, not a killer. And the boy’s only two. Both innocent. Make me think he’s mine and love him and someone could rip me apart by taking him away and letting me know he’s nothing to do with me. It’d be too late.

The love’s real.

Shit.

Plant Erin in my life with the boy and it might be easy to bring me down from the inside.

I’m not just being unreasonable. I’m being batshit insane, but I’ve locked on. If he isn’t mine and he’s taken, then I’m destroyed. It wouldn’t matter the parentage, I’d love him. And I couldn’t do a thing to have him if he wasn’t biologically mine.

Erin… she…

Maybe it’s the vodka coursing through my veins, but Iease out of Sasha’s room and take the stairs up to the third floor, where I dismiss the guards. They won’t go far, but I don’t want anyone to overhear my coming conversation.

I punch in the code and storm in. She’s sitting on the bed, so like how I found Sasha that I stumble, heart contracting, but her look is pain and defeat and I… I harden myself against it.

“Are you going to let me see him?” she asks, voice dull, “or just torture me some more?”

For a moment, I’m not sure what to say. Either she’s being honest and I’ve lost whatever is left of my mind or she’s in the running for a fucking Oscar.

“Why are you really here?”

Erin laughs and hooks a strand of her unkempt blonde hair behind her ear. It should diminish her, the layer of neglect about her, but it doesn’t. It just tugs at me, hard. She’s a beautiful woman, but it’s not that; it’s the thing in her that won’t die. The thing that burns, no matter what.

“You kidnapped me, Demyan.”

I narrow my eyes. How can she glow like that even though she needs a brush? “Are you working for Niko?”

“Who?”

“It’s a little too much of a coincidence you were there, and you have a child you’re passing off as mine.”

She goes still and a bitter triumph fills me. I don’t believe a word I’m saying and yet I can’t stop. I want her to be the villain. I need it because I know just how horrible I’ve been, my anger turning me into a man who shames me and would make my father proud because of how I’m treating her is how he treated me.

Outrageous accusations, the twist of different knives, the need for pain and suffering inflicted on the victim.

If she’s the villain, then I’m not the monster.

“What are you talking about?” she whispers.

“Don’t pretend you don’t know.”

I stalk up to her, and she’s on her feet fast and backing away. “You’re crazy. Who the fuck is Niko? Why on earth would I try to hurt you? I don’t want to cause anyone pain. I just want Sasha safe and with me.”

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