Page 6 of The Tempo of Truth (The Monsters Duet #3)

Lev laughed. He used his elbow to poke at my ribs and mimed wiping fake tears from his eyes.

“Why would the Halliday heiress be holding a kid who looks like you? I don’t care how famous you were when you were younger; you two come from different planets.

Not just worlds, but entirely different solar systems.” He continued to chuckle.

“She’s my favorite Halliday. She seems the most interesting of the bunch.

She doesn’t seem as elite and snobby as most billionaires come across. ”

“She’s not snobby.” I sighed as the screen went dark. “She’s sweet and shy.” And a bit deranged with stalker tendencies, but Lev didn’t need to know that about her.

Lev stiffened and gave me a look filled with disbelief. “You know her? How? You date reality TV stars and hang out with hooligans. She’s pretty much America’s princess. She’s royalty, and you’re trash. Good-looking garbage, but junk just the same. Those two lifestyles are not compatible.”

I lifted my non-injured eyebrow. “We knew each other when we were teenagers. Our paths have crossed occasionally over the years when we were both living overseas. The last time I saw her, I’d just got kicked out of the Premier Liga.

Winnie’s the only reason I didn’t drink myself to death or walk into the sea and drown that night.

You know I can hardly swim.” I felt old memories I had done my best to bury starting to claw their way to the surface.

“Winnie Halliday is the best and worst thing to ever happen to me.” And now I was wondering if I was the father of the child she’d kept hidden from the world up until now.

The little boy in the picture looked to be around five.

The last time I saw Winnie was that heated and hopeless night more than six years ago.

Was it possible I was a father all this time and didn’t know it?

As a kid who was adopted and then abandoned by his adoptive father, I was more sensitive than the average young man when it came to close familial ties.

I never thought about having kids in the future, because my life was so messed up.

But now that I thought it might be a possibility, I couldn’t deny there was a quiet longing underneath the disbelief when I thought about being a father.

How could Winnie keep something so huge and important from me for so long?

Lev whistled. “Are you telling me that kid might be yours?” His eyes brightened, and his words tumbled with excitement as he suggested, “You need to get a paternity test done ASAP. If you’re really the father, that little boy is a gold mine just waiting for you to tap into it.

Imagine the type of child support you could ask for.

Holy shit! The Hallidays might pay you millions just to get you to go away and pretend you have no interest in hanging around the little boy.

You’re looking at an opportunity that’s even bigger than being allowed to play in the international leagues.

If you can pry open a Halliday wallet, you’ll be set for life. This is life-changing, Ky.”

I dragged a hand down my face. “There’s no proof the kid is mine—or hers.

” Sure, she was holding him like he was her entire world, but that wasn’t definitive proof the boy was Winnie’s son.

Those Hallidays had spawned a boatload of kids over the years.

Winnie had several cousins, and even a half-sibling or two.

She could’ve simply been snapped carrying a relative.

That didn’t explain why the little boy was my exact copy, but my brain was working overtime to justify my world as I knew it from turning inside out.

Lev shoved his phone under my nose and pointed at the jersey the little boy was wearing.

“He’s wearing your number from when you played for Brazil.

You were no one back then. Why would one of the richest women in the world put something like that on her child when she can afford a designer?

And if she’s a fan, why not represent the winning team?

She wouldn’t use that particular jersey unless it was sentimental. ”

“She probably didn’t plan on having her picture taken.

I doubt she planned on telling the world she had a kid in such a flashy manner.

That’s not her style.” I lifted my hand and tugged at the end of the tape wrapped around my wrist with my teeth so I could set my palms free.

“Maybe I’m wrong.” It seemed I didn’t know Winnie nearly as well as I thought I did.

I couldn’t look at her through the filter of what once was.

To see her clearly, I needed to view her as someone capable of keeping the truth from me and hiding a secret I had every right to know. “She’s changed.”

“I don’t care if the girl’s morphed into a dinosaur.

That boy should know who his father is, especially if it’s you.

I know you better than you know yourself, Ky.

You might not want the cash, but I know that all you’ve ever really wanted is a family.

I know Julie raised you right and did her best on her own when times were tough at the beginning.

But you’ve always wanted more than that.

There is no way in hell you’re going to walk away from any child who might have your blood running through their veins.

” He grunted as he shoved a withered finger in my face.

“Don’t make this another regret you can’t let go of. ”

I tossed the bloody tape in the trash and pushed off the boxing ring. “That’s good advice, old man, but I think you’ve forgotten that no one can approach a family like the Hallidays just for the hell of it.”

Not even with the history we had. That made it even harder for me to get close.

The suspicion that I might be involved with Winnie’s kidnapping still hung over my head.

There was no chance they were going to let me near that kid with all the unanswered questions from the past lingering.

If anyone thought I might snatch the little boy and leverage him for nefarious means, I didn’t want to imagine what sort of horrible retribution any of the Hallidays would come up with.

Winnie didn’t scare me as much as Win Halliday did.

The man might be retired and pretty much live the life of a stay-at-home dad, but I would never underestimate him.

A sleeping tiger still had all of its teeth and claws.

On top of the societal gap being too vast to bridge, I had ordered Winnie to stay away from me and told her I never wanted to see her again. And I meant every word of it at the time.

After that night, she kept up her end of the bargain.

I no longer saw her face in the crowd or felt like someone was following my every move from a distance.

She disappeared completely, and so did the feeling of having someone on my side.

No matter what. When I pushed her away, I lost the only true teammate I had besides my mother.

Lev clapped a hand on my shoulder and gave me a playful shove.

“I can help you get close. A couple of members of the gym are former military. I know one of them is in the private security industry. I can poke around and see if I can get the contact info for someone on Halliday’s detail.

We can set up a chance meeting, and you can get a good look at the little boy. ”

I shook my head. “No way. I’m not doing anything underhanded when it comes to Winnie.

” I’d taken advantage of her fondness for me more than enough.

“If she hasn’t changed her number in all these years, I can call her directly.

If I try to scheme my way into that child’s life, it’s bound to end badly.

” I didn’t want to play any more games with Winnie’s feelings.

She deserved better than that. It had taken my epic rise and spectacular fall to realize that.

Anyone who showed up for me when I was at my lowest should be exempt from the machinations and misdeeds that fueled my current existence.

She didn’t need to be part of the grind I used to stay relevant.

“She kept the boy a secret from you for years. Why would she be honest with you now? You’ve got a blind spot that’s making you soft, Ky.

” A heavy thump hit me on the back before the Russian started to lumber in the direction of a young boxer who called him to help spar.

“You’ll be lucky if you ever get to meet the boy face to face if you’re going to be weak.

You earned yourself that smackdown from a rookie earlier. ”

I grunted in response. I picked up my gym bag and went into the locker room to wash the blood off my face.

I thought some ice-cold water might stop my head from buzzing, but no matter what I did, I couldn’t get my mind off the picture of Winnie and the little boy.

Every time I looked at it, my heart pounded, and a fuzzy feeling I’d never experienced before filled my gut. I needed to get answers.

I stripped and shoved everything in a locker so I could take a shower and wash away the weak chicken energy I brought with me into the ring today. Typically, I dropped Lev’s trainees to the mat within the first five minutes of squaring off with them.

It was an open secret that I fought unsanctioned and underground.

The kids he brought underestimated me until I made them see stars.

I was both revered and reviled around the gym.

Everyone was going to have a good laugh at my poor showing today when the word that a newbie made me bleed made the rounds.

Fortunately, I had the locker room to myself as I cleaned up and did my best to put the unpleasant round and Lev’s provocation behind me. I needed time to decide the best method to approach Winnie to ask about the kid.

I didn’t remember everything from that night years ago.

Things got hazy from the moment Winnie entered the bar.

I recalled leaving with her, and I still knew exactly how she tasted and how warm and soft she felt underneath me.

My favorite secret was the knowledge that I was the Halliday heiress’s first. Even drunk off my ass, it stayed with me that no one else knew what it was like to make Winnie lose control.

All those fuzzy, sex-filled memories swirled together, and there wasn’t a condom or mention of another type of birth control in any of them.

I was too inebriated to think about safe sex, and I guessed Winnie was too na?ve to consider it.

We created a perfect storm, and the weather was just right for leaving her with a living, breathing souvenir.

While I forced myself to forget, Winnie was stuck with a reminder of my shitty behavior and blatant disregard, a reminder she obviously loved and cherished.

At the same time, I sank deeper into a pit of gratuitous indulgence and predictable self-destruction.

Maybe the kid was better off without me. I knew his mother definitely was.

Only, just as I was about to convince myself to drop the whole thing and let sleeping dogs lie, my phone dinged with an incoming message.

There was no name attached to the number, just a black heart.

I’d set the image when I was a teenager and knew the cute girl I saved from bullies was way out of my league.

I also knew she was going to hate me once she figured out I didn’t protect her out of the goodness of my heart, but because I wanted something from her, just like everyone else in her privileged life.

I looked at the message and felt the world shift under my feet. It seemed neither of us had changed our numbers since we were teens. We’d always been able to contact one another. Something about that felt significant.

~ This is Winnie. We need to meet. I have to talk to you about something important.

The words were simple. And yet, I knew whatever followed them was going to be anything but.