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Chapter Twelve

ERIN

I don’t move. I’m frozen as my worst nightmare stands in front of me and stares. Ice-cold, made of unfeeling stone. Demanding his son.

From somewhere I find words as I hold Sasha’s shaking little frail body. He’s a baby, he’s innocent and this man…

“You’re not his father. I gave birth to him, sacrificed for him. I’m the one raising him, loving him. I’m?—”

“Enough.” Demyan’s voice is cold as he cuts me off. “Not here.”

“But—”

“We’ll talk about this.” His tone’s as harsh, stiff, unfeeling as he is. And he sweeps his gaze around the bare-bones motel room and part of my brain’s trying to work out how I can pay for the door.

I haven’t unpacked much, just a couple of essentials, a snack for Sasha, a book, toothbrush. His stuffed baby goat.

Like an organized storm, Demyan sweeps things into the bag that’s open and shoves it all in, never seeming to take his gaze off us for more than a second.

“I’m not going?— ”

“You are. We’ll talk about this, but right now, my priority is getting you and… your son to safety.”

He then drags things out and car doors slam. Then he’s back and he reaches for Sasha, but I turn. “We need his seat and his bedding.”

“For fuck’s sake.” He grabs the bedding as it’s obvious it belongs to a little boy, and then he nods at me and I slowly get up. “You can hold him.”

“There are laws.”

“Like I give a fuck.”

“For safety.”

“We wouldn’t need safety items if you hadn’t run off, which was a really fucking stupid thing to do.”

I swallow and make myself say, “I wasn’t thinking. The only thing I cared about was getting to my son.”

And away from Demyan, but that I keep silent.

He finishes putting things in the car and returns, holding out his arms. “Give me the child.”

“No.”

He sighs like his patience is so thin it’s practically nonexistent. “I don’t know how to put a damn child seat in, so you’ll have to do it.”

Anger bursts bright, but I try to push it down. “I’ll just follow you.”

“Like hell you will. We go together and you’re not driving my fucking car.”

“Like I’d trust you with my child.”

“Give me the kid. Now. And put the seat in, then check I got everything.”

I don’t want to. I’d rather cut off my own foot than give him my child. My child. Not his. All he ever did was accidentally donate some sperm.

But there’s no room for that kind of fury, that argument. The man’s powerful, rich, dangerous. And I think he might just shove us in the car and risk Sasha’s life.

Reluctantly, I hand him over, my sobbing, shaking little boy. I suspect Demyan is smart enough to work out how to install the child safety seat, just like I’m sure he’s efficient enough to get all our things on the first sweep.

He just doesn’t trust me.

With good reason.

Given a chance, you bet I’d run with Sasha.

The furious look Demyan gives me burns deep as he takes Sasha and I hurry out to take the seat from the back of Kara’s car and put it in the flashy one that belongs to Demyan.

When I go back in, he’s holding Sasha so gently, saying soothing things to him that have him quieting down. Things in Russian, since I don’t understand them.

And it hurts.

Something big rips inside me, and I can’t help the hot tears that storm through me, tears I somehow hold back. Like my boy’s betraying me, wanting this man who hates me, is angry at me for the lies and the fact I never told him about his son.

It doesn’t matter that without Tom, I’d never have been able to find him, just like it doesn’t matter Sasha’s not betraying me; he just finds the big man soothing and he probably likes his voice.

It doesn’t matter because emotions aren’t exactly part of critical thinking or common sense, they just are.

Our eyes meet over Sasha, and it’s like the world stops.

Demyan’s tenderness and brutality are intrinsically linked. They were when we fucked, and they are now. The tenderness here is for Sasha, the brutality is aimed at me, and I drop my gaze first.

He just turns with Sasha and heads out.

Stumbling, I follow as a moment of panic flares. What if he takes him and leaves me, what? —

“Here.” The reluctance in his voice tugs at something deep inside.

Demyan stands at the open back door and gives me Sasha.

“Mama.” And I’m rewarded with a sleepy, tear-stained smile. His gaze drops to his baby goat. “Mine.”

I strap him in as he hugs the ratty thing, and then I tuck the blanket around him that Demyan dumped on the seat.

“Get in the fucking car, Erin.”

I do, because it’s my only option. He slams the door, then goes into the room. I don’t see what he does, but he’s tucking something away as he returns and gets into the car.

When we’re on the freeway, I ask for his phone.

He snorts and shakes his head. “Fuck no.”

“I need to call my friend.”

But he doesn’t answer, just punches a button on his phone, and a man answers. “Boss?”

“Ilya?”

There’s back and forth in Russian, started by Demyan. When he disconnects, he says, “Ms. Everton’s car is going to be picked up and returned to her. Ilya will explain you’re staying with a friend.”

Pressing my lips together, I nod. There’s no point in arguing over this. No point stating this Ilya’s got a fight on his hands when Kara hears that.

“She’ll call the cops.”

“No,” he says flatly, “she won’t.”

I shiver and turn back to look at Sasha, but he’s sleeping and I don’t miss the sudden grim set to his mouth as I do.

“What’s going on? I have a right to know now that you’ve dragged Sasha into it. He’s just a baby.”

He doesn’t answer, so I try another angle.

“Did you find Alina?”

That works. He nods. “She’s okay, I got her back. But you and our son are in danger?— ”

I don’t miss the emphasis he places on our . “Because you grabbed us. No one knows.”

“I worked it out. Someone else will. And I won’t risk my child. I can protect him. And you.”

“We don’t need protection.”

“You do. As I fucking said, you’re in danger because I’m going after the men who killed Max, the men who kidnapped my sister.

And when I do, when they find out what I’ve already done,” he says, sending a shiver of ice down my spine, “when they discover I’m going to destroy them all, they’ll most likely attempt revenge. ”

My stomach churns, queasy and tender.

It sinks in. Down into my bones.

Sasha and I are in danger because we’ll be the obvious targets if we’re not already.

And part of me wants to say they won’t know, but all it takes is one person seeing us at the wedding or back in Chicago and a little research into me and Sasha’s age…

Fuck, one look at a photo of Sasha and they’ll know. He looks so much like Demyan right now.

And this is why I ran, why I didn’t try to find him when Tom warned me, this crushing danger.

I wanted to protect Sasha from exactly this, and…

A sound escapes, and I stare at our ghostly reflections in the window.

“This isn’t your fault,” he says, words low. “It just is.”

No, I think it is. And it’s also Demyan’s.

The mansion is just as beautiful as before and there are more men on the grounds and this time, even though it’s Demyan behind the wheel, security shines a light into the car, on me, on the sleeping Sasha .

It might be beautiful, but to me it’s lost any charm it might have. The whole thing, the grounds, the guards, the mansion, they’re all somehow more oppressive than before.

Because this time, I don’t think there’s going to be a way out.

He slows to a normal pace, the kind one does when taking a longish road up to an expansive house that sits on even more expansive grounds. But to me, it’s excruciating in its slowness, like he’s some kind of sadist, exploring a new realm of his hobby… torturing me.

The fact the front is clear of most vegetation and the main gardens are in the back which is flanked by other properties, some with electric wires on the fences, makes me both shiver with wonder that I’d gotten away in the first place and the stone-cold knowledge I can’t do it again.

Not with Sasha.

I’m not risking him being shot.

If I’m to find a way out, I have to plan, plot, and play the waiting game. Sasha’s smart, but he’s only two. He gets being quiet but sometimes that’s a crapshoot with a toddler.

Shit. I risk a glance at the hard features of the man next to me, the set to his jaw I know a little too well, and not from memory. Sasha does that too. Usually when he’s digging his heels in.

But unlike a baby, I can’t bribe this man.

Hell, I’m finding it hard reconciling the fact he turned me to melted butter.

Though, if I strip the terror and fear, his touch still sings.

He—what am I thinking? That I can seduce him into letting us go? I probably could manage the first part if he was bored or looking for sex. But the letting go?

Never.

Sasha is his.

He won’t let his son go .

Another man might, but this one… I feel it in my bones. He won’t ever let my son go.

I’m going to have to be smart.

I suck in a breath as his gaze hits mine for a second.

“Whatever the fuck you’re thinking, Erin, don’t.” His tone is flat.

Demyan finally pulls up to the front of the mansion, sending gravel spitting.

I open my mouth, twisting in the seat, but those cold ice-blue eyes shut me up.

He gets out and closes the door with a decisive click and I can’t help it, I pull hard on the seat belt, the nylon cutting in and I look at the ignition, my hand already outstretched.

But, of course, the keys are missing and he says from the back, “I’m not a fucking idiot.”

He already has the door open and is working the straps holding the sleeping Sasha. He scoops him up and gets out, cradling him.

I’m out so fast I pitch almost face-first on the gravel, heart thumping as I stumble, managing at the last minute to right myself.

A sound, horrible and keening, is wrenched from my soul as I grab the car, legs buckling as he stands, holding my child with a gentleness that belies the brute he is.

He stalks off, barely affording me a glance, the anger radiating from him so hot I’m burned.

For a moment I stand there, staring, and I half turn to the car. I’m about to close the door when I see something. I scrabble over the back seat and scoop up Sasha’s pillow and stuffed baby goat, hugging them like they’re my boy, and I race off after Demyan, who’s disappearing in the mansion.

He’s furious, mad at me, I tell myself. I know this. Sasha does this. The world ends, and he’s anger— burning, melting anger—and nothing will ever be right again. No one is forgiven. And then… I am. And he’s sunshine and smiles through the tears on his cheeks.

Demyan’s the same. He’s obviously angry, but unlike a two-year-old, he’s reasonable and he’ll be willing to listen to me.

Maybe not right this moment, but in a few minutes when the anger settles.

He’s smart. He can be gentle, and I assume loving.

He loves his sister, and he was once nice to me.

Even if it was to get into my pants, he was nice. He didn’t need to be.

I probably would have fucked him if he was an ass because he’s that hot and he was paying me attention.

Pushing out air, I rush into the foyer. “Demyan,” I say, “can we?—”

“Quiet.” He looks over to a woman who’s young and attractive. She’s not the one who fed me. Of course, he’d have more staff. And she’s staff. She’s wearing the same uniform as the other woman. “Olga, take my son to the living room.”

Without waiting, he hands him over and then turns to me, grabbing my wrist in a hard, manacled grip and drags me away.

“No, no, Demyan, my son, I need?—”

“Nothing, so shut up.” I open my mouth again, but the deadly fury is locked up behind an unfeeling mask that I find more terrifying than the anger. “If you know what’s good for you, shut the fuck up.”

He drags me up the stairs. Past the second floor, to the third one, where there are guards at the top of the stairs. He opens a different door to a bigger room, more like a suite. Outside, two more guards take up residence. He pushes me inside.

This is a long-term cell. Luxurious, but a cell. There’s no old-fashioned lock, just a high-tech lock that looks like it has a scanner and a keypad. Both sides, but the one on my side is dead. I stand near what looks like a small living area and stare at him .

“Let me have my son.”

But he steps back and I lift the hand with the toy and the pillow to me, hugging them, breathing in Sasha’s scent.

“Until you can be trusted, you’ll have no contact with Sasha at all.”

And he walks out, closing the door.

Locking me in.