Page 18 of Oathbreaker

Briar and I made love around the twentieth of May. If she’d gotten pregnant, the baby would have come nine months later… around the twenty-first of February.

Fuck.

Is it possible?

Did I leave Briar pregnant with my baby?

I pull in a shaky breath. This is unexpected and all the things I was planning to say to her go right out the window.

If this is my daughter, that means I abandoned her when she needed me most. How the hell do we come back from this? I don’t think there’s a single thing I can do to make it up to her. To either of them.

My stomach churns with guilt and fury. At all the bad luck. Miscommunication, both on my part and that of my superiors. I run my hands down my face to buy a little time. Try to breathe through emotions that are hitting me so hard I feel a little nauseated.

“Are you sick?” Frankie asks after a moment. “Should I go get Mommy?”

“No. I’m okay.” I stare at her. My daughter. She’s my daughter. There is no doubt in my mind.

“You don’t look okay. Your face looks funny.” She reaches out a tiny finger, gently running it over my right eye. That’s one of the worst bruises, and it’s still a kaleidoscope of colors as it heals. “Does your booboo hurt?”

“A little.”

“Did you fall off your bike?”

I smile, shaking my head. “No. I was in a different kind of accident and needed an operation. But I’m getting better.”

“My mommy is really good at making people feel better. Whenever my tummy hurts, Mommy rubs it and lets me cuddle with her. Then like magic, it goes away.”

I can’t help but smile even though part of me wants to cry.

I have no doubt that Briar is a good mom.

Even if the man she thought she was going to have a future with abandoned her, she wouldn’t have let that stop her from doing whatever she had to do to make her child’s life safe and happy.

She must have been so damn hurt that she couldn’t reach me. And then, adding insult to injury, the organization I work for decided to tell the world—my family and the woman I love—that I was dead.

Horror washes over me.

If I were Briar, I would hate me.

What fresh hell is this?

I thought I’d reached rock bottom those last weeks in Siberia, when the cold and starvation and ongoing torture seemed to have gotten the best of me. I was ready to die, to let go of the pain and humiliation, and succumb to the darkness. As far as I was concerned, there had been nothing left to fight for.

It would have been completely different if I’d known I had a kid. That Briar had—No. I have to stop. There’s no reason to believe this little girl is mine. Pregnancy isn’t exactly nine months. She probably went out and fucked me right out of her system with guys who were going to stay around.

Except… as far as I can tell, she’s single. And anyway, I know Briar wouldn’t do that. The sweet, innocent woman who gave me her virginity and told me she’d loved me for a long time? The one who laid in my arms and planned a future with me? No, she didn’t fuck other guys right away. Probably not for a long time.

And no matter how many excuses I can think up, the truth is staring at me in a compact, sturdy little body. With my eyes. My nose. Even her eyebrows are the same shape as mine. Jesus.

“Where’s your mommy?” I ask Frankie.

“In the kitchen with Uncle Royal and Auntie Jade.”

Royal.

He’s right here in the house with me, basically just steps away.

I have to see him, talk to him—explain.