Page 69 of Misdeeds of a Billionaire

I frowned. All that for nothing?

I ran a hand through my hair. Part of me wanted to go after Odette and kidnap her. Maybe all these mobsters had a point when they forced their women into marriage. If I had done it, I wouldn’t be in this position now.

“Someone got their hands on Dr. Swan,” Nico continued. “The bruises were faded and she hid them with makeup, but there’s no mistaking it. Someone hurt her.”

A deathly stillness fell over me. I had to take a second to swallow down the burning rage.Someone hurt her. Someone hurt her.A part of me—the irrational part—pounded at my chest, shaking the bars of its cage, ready to go hunting. To punish the one who dared lay a finger on my woman.

My woman.Christ, six years and I still thought of her as mine.

“I want a name,” I snapped, but deep down I knew. I fucking knew.

“And the boy?” Winston demanded. “Was my son there? Was he okay? Safe?”

Nico’s answer took a heartbeat too long, yet it felt like hours. And I wasn’t even the father. Winston’s eyes were glued on my phone as if he could force an answer out of Nico through the phone.

“Dr. Swan’s boy is your son, Winston?” Nico’s question changed everything.

My heart stopped. It fucking stopped beating. Now it was me staring at the phone sitting on my desk, as if it held all the answers.Dr. Swan’s boy.No, it couldn’t be. No fucking way.

The doctor said she lost the baby. How could that be? There was no chance that I misunderstood her.

I ran a hand through my hair. It fucking trembled. I survived burning flesh, deployments to war zones, SEAL training, and never once did I let my cool waver. Fucking. Ever. Yet right now, my hands shook.

There were only two other times that my hands shook. That day I sought her out at her father’s hospital, after our one and only night together. And that last day I saw her—the day she lost the baby.

Before that day, I hadn’t seen her for three months and that was even worse. Seeing her slumped body on the street shaved a decade off my life. The sheer terror that she was gone, forever. I was willing to sacrifice my happiness so she could move on, but not with the knowledge that she no longer walked this earth.

The fear that she wouldn’t pull through tore my heart to shreds; learning she was pregnant and lost the baby on the same day felt like a sharp stab into what was left of it. It didn’t matter that being without her was killing me, because living in a world where she didn’t exist was worse.

Dr. Swan has a son.The meaning pierced through the fog of a million other scattered thoughts. The boy looked like me. How was that possible? The doctor clearly indicated that Odette lost the baby. Didn’t she?

I opened the drawer of my desk and pulled out my wallet. There was a single sonogram photo in the sleeve of it, old bloodstains still smeared on it. I stared at it, as I had many other times before, except different feelings filled my chest now.

How many times had I stared at it, wishing we had a different outcome? How many times had I hoped against all odds that the baby had survived? That Odette, the baby, and I could have had a future together.

She came to see me the day of the accident, and I was fairly certain of what she wanted to tell me, if what I was holding in my hands wasn’t proof enough. Then why did she leave? She came so close only to turn around. Why did she run? I thought back to the day in the hospital. Had I missed something? Had I done something wrong? Maybe I was too rough?

Goddamn it, I wanted to know. I could have seenmyson grow up. I should have been part of his life from the moment he was conceived.

My mind conjured every single moment, trying to evaluate what signs I could have missed.

“Hello? Anyone there, or is this call over?” Nico’s voice sent memories and thoughts scurrying into the dark corners of my mind where they’d hidden for the past six years.

A deep ache pierced my heart and grew with each heartbeat. It pulsed deeper and higher, thundering painfully in my ears. I raised my eyes and met Winston’s. Same eyes as mine. His hair—same color as mine. No fucking wonder he thought the kid was his. Our baby pictures were almost identical.

“We’re here,” Winston answered, his eyes filling with apprehension, as though the realization was hitting him at the exact same time. “No, he’s not my son. He’s Byron’s.”

A light bitterness laced my brother’s last words.

I never realized Winston wanted a kid. Not until he made the assumption—the wrong one—a few days ago in New Orleans. I searched deep inside me for regret. I couldn’t find it. But I did find something else.

A sliver of resentment. Bitterness.

Was he mine? Or someone else’s son? He looked like me, even Winston. Yet, a shred of doubt inched its way inside my brain. None of it made any sense. I fucking hated doubt and insecurities. I had seen the boy, and I couldn’t deny the plain truth staring at me. He was an Ashford, which brought me to the next point.

Odette stole something priceless from me.My son.

It was time to teach Dr. Swan what it meant to cross an Ashford.