Page 114 of Secret Heir

I look down. Oh, I guess she’s right. There’s dark red blood (nearly black) that’s soaked through my shirt and stiffening now. It’s Maksim’s blood from when I was trying to stop the bleeding. And maybe mixed in my own from the cuts on my back from the flying glass.

“I don’t care.” I sound distant, like it’s coming from someone else. “My son. I need my son.”

“I’m sure he will come soon, but you need medical attention⁠—”

“Not now.” I finally make my legs move and let her guide me to the waiting room. “After Maksim is out of surgery. I need to know he’s alive. Then you can look at me.”

She doesn’t argue. Instead, she brings me water and leaves me alone.

I sit in the hard plastic chair and pull my legs up to my chest, my whole body shaking. Every time I close my eyes, I see the burning car and Maksim on the ground, covered in blood. My mind races with what could have been. Poor Len. Maksim would have had that same fate.

If Maksim hadn’t seen those bird droppings and listened to his mother’s superstition, he’d have gotten into the car and would have been dead.

I glance down to my stomach toward the small swell where our baby grows. Our baby would have grown up without a father, just like the first time. Except this time it would have been so much worse because Daniel would have watched his father die.

The sobs come then and they hurt from how hard they are.

Someone sits down beside me. I look up to see Anton, with Daniel in his arms.

“Mama!” Daniel practically throws himself at me, and I catch him, pull him into my lap, and hold him so tight he squeaks.

“I’m here, Danny boy,” I murmur into his hair. “I’m here.”

“Is Maks dead?” he asks, terrified. “Is he gone?”

“No. He’s in surgery. The doctors are helping him.” I rock him, like I did when he was a baby. “He’s going to be okay.”

Daniel looks up at me and those gray eyes are so familiar it makes my stomach twist. “Promise?”

I shouldn’t promise anything as I don’t know if it’s true. But as I look at my son’s tear-stained face, I can’t not promise.

“I promise,” I tell him.

He buries his face in my neck and cries. I hold him and cry too.

An hour passes. Then two.

Daniel has finally cried himself to sleep against my chest. My arms are numb from holding him, but I don’t move. I don’t want to wake him.

Guards come and go, reporting to someone in hushed voices. I catch fragments— “payment trail to offshore accounts”—but no one speaks to me directly. I’m invisible. Just the woman holding the sleeping child in the waiting room.

Then Nikolai arrives.

I see him before he sees me, his face carved from stone. But when his eyes find me, I see something I’ve never seen before.

Real, genuine fear.

His brother almost died. For the first time, Nikolai is facing the reality that Maksim is mortal and he could have lost him. But when he looks at me, the fear transforms into cold fury. He crosses the waiting room in long strides and stops in front of me.

“This is your fault,” he hisses, his face white with rage.

I stare at him, unable to process his words. “Excuse me?”

“My brother has been chasing your conspiracy theories for weeks. Someone must have found out he was investigating Alexander and decided to eliminate him.” His eyes are chips of ice. “A good man is dead because Maksim was distracted by your lies.”

“They’re not lies!” I’m trying to keep my voice down for Daniel’s sake, but rage is flooding through me. “Alexander did this! I told you⁠—”

“You told me a lot of things. None of which you can prove.” He turns away dismissively. “A man is dead and my brother is in surgery because you couldn’t keep your paranoid delusions to yourself.”