Page 59 of Forgotten Vows

We rushed inside. My heart was lodged in my throat, and my chest was too tight.

Dread coursed through my veins, but it sharpened into the need to fight as the scene was revealed.

A small group of students hunched down in the corner, cowering.

But my son stood tall. Heaving deep breaths and staring at me with wide-open eyes of shock and fear, he poised the fire extinguisher over his head, ready to bring it back down on the head of the masked man rising from the floor.

Emil rushed toward him, shielding him and the others as I lifted my arm. I aimed and fired without an inkling of mercy.

If the children weren’t here, if my son couldn’t be at risk of witnessing the full extent of my wrath, I would’ve tortured this fucker and killed him slowly until he begged for salvation in any grisly form it could come.

“Daddy!”

As soon as I shot the masked man dead, Lev cried out. He cried out forme, calling me the one thing that would forever instill me with potent pride.

Daddy.

That was damn right.

I was his father. Only I could claim that title. Emil let him go, still alert as more men rushed into the room. He watched over us as I held my arms out and caught Lev. He collided withme, smacking his small body against mine. Wrapping my arms around him and holding him tightly, I thanked any god that was listening that he was alive. He was alive and unharmed.

Releasing him as I crouched, I scanned him for any sign of an injury. He was fine. He was unharmed, trembling and still sporting that look of shock, but otherwise, he was fine.

I clutched him to me again after that inventory, knowing my cousin and the others were stillonand hunting for the men who’d scared my boy and the others.

That gunshot had taken the life of the man who must have been the tutor or teacher, and I pivoted, blocking Lev’s direct view of the man.

“I was so scared,” he admitted into my suit jacket where he burrowed his face.

“You were so brave,” I amended.

He’d stood up and fought back. He hadn’t cowered. He was resourceful to fight back.

I’d never needed a sign to know he was actually my child. But if I’d wanted reassurance, this was more than enough proof.

Like father, like son.

He wasn’t afraid to fight.

Like mother, like son.

I hadn’t forgotten that Raisa killed two Rivera men to flee.

“Sighting on the roof,” Emil reported, relying on the text he’d received.

I nodded once. “Go.” I stood, keeping my hand on Lev’s shoulder as I steered him to my cousin. “Take him home. Raisa has to be afraid of this news. Go take him home and I’ll handle this.”

“But Daddy—” Lev dug his heels in, giving me a fearful expression.

“Be brave, Lev. Go be with your mother. She’ll be worried sick until she sees you.”

“But she loves you too. I know she does. She wants you safe too.”

This boy was perceptive, and I wasn’t surprised he hadn’t missed how Raisa acted toward me. Shedidlove me. We all knew it, but I had to hear it from her lips to trust in that phenomenon.

“I will be. Go with Emil. And I’ll meet you at home.”

Lev broke away to hug me one last time. Then, flanked by Emil and the other Dubinin soldiers, they covered him and removed him from the building. Other students were taken out to safety as well. They weren’t my concern, though.