Page 46 of The Den of Sin
Her mother’s eyes fluttered open and her gaze hit me right into my chest. Isabella was a spitting image of her mother, even the exact same shade of her eyes.
“Nikola,” her voice was hoarse and weak, calling out my father’s name.
“No.”
Her unblinking stare was unnerving. She swallowed hard. “Nikola, where is my son?”
I frowned at the odd question. I came to mock the woman, gloat at giving back what she gave to my mother. She broke my mother, my family. My mother found out about my father’s affair. It made her bitter and resentful, dishing out her anger at his sons because he was never around. For the longest time, I was Sasha’s only defense. And then she got pregnant with Tatiana. Two months after giving birth to her, she killed herself. Leaving another child all alone.
This woman was the reason my sister had to grow up without a mother. She was the reason my brother had to spend his adolescence years without both of his parents. Even after Marietta Taylor cost our family so much, my father couldn’t let go. He kept searching for her, ignoring his responsibilities to Sasha and Tatiana. It was the reason I had to step up and take the reins of our family and our business. Or risk losing it all.
“Where is my Alexei?”
“Who’s Alexei?” I questioned her.
“Your wife took my son.” Her voice was weak and hoarse, her breathing heaving. “My poor boy.”
Maybe she was hallucinating. “You have a daughter,” I told her. She must be confusing the gender of her offspring.
“Yes, my little Bella,” she murmured softly, her eyes closed. “She’ll need her big brother now. My Alexei and Bella.”
What the fuck was she talking about?
“Where is your son?”
Her eyes opened, a distant look lingering in them. “I searched everywhere. It is the reason I went to Santos.” Her frail hand took mine into hers. “It was the only reason, Nikola. Your wife took our son, and I wanted him back. Please believe me.”
I stood there frozen, her hand holding mine. Yet on the inside, I felt my life spiraling out of control, like a whirlwind. My father and this woman had a son. I didn’t understand her reference to the Santos family.
Her hand gently shaking my arm had me focusing back on her.
“Are you my son?” My mind revolted at her question, causing a sickening feeling in the pit of my stomach. Images of Isabella and I on her little dorm bed as I thrusted into her flashed in front of my eyes, my name on her lips as she moaned, the way she kissed me.
Don’t think about it.
The way her pussy felt milking my cock, her taste on my lips. Everything we had done that night swirled in my mind on repeat, over and over again. I’d get sick at any moment. My stomach churned, bile forming in my throat. And regret in my chest.She will never be mine.
I shook my head, trying to clear my head. I had to think rationally. This woman wasn’t my mother. She couldn’t be. She wasn’t even in the picture back then, and she was younger than my own mother. Fuck, this woman was scaring the shit out of me.
Maybe Sasha was hers? This is fucking bullshit, saying things like that! I could just choke the poor woman right now.
“No,” I rasped the answer. “How old is your son?”
“My little Alexei will be thirty. I won’t see him turn thirty either.” The regret in her voice punched me in the gut. Sasha was thirty-three.I have a half-brother somewhere out there, the revelation rattled me to my bones. “I’m going to miss my little Bella’s birthday too,” she murmured, drifting off to sleep. “Find my son, Nikola. Please, for my little Bella.”
The eyes of a dying woman begged me in labored breathing, and images of my own mother gripping my hand, her body broken in the courtyard of our estate in Russia flashed in my mind. So fucking ironic. With her last dying breath, my mother begged me to avenge her, make Marietta Taylor pay, make her suffer.
And here we were. Marietta Taylor on her deathbed begging me to find her son, my half-brother.
“Don’t let Santos take Bella,” she begged in a small voice and instantly I stilled. The Santos were our enemies. “They don’t know about her. She is too soft. It’s not her fault he’s her father.”
This was not going the way I envisioned. I came to gloat, give this woman back the suffering she brought onto my family. And now I come to find out I have a half-brother and Santos is Bella’s father.
“Which Santos?” I choked the question out but there could only be one.
“Lombardo.”Lombardo Santos is Isabella’s father!
“Keep her safe, Nikola.” Her mind wasn’t clear, she kept calling me by my father’s name. “Find Alexei and tell him-” her voice was weak, “tell my little boy I love him. I never stopped looking for him.”
