Page 127 of Secret Heir

We’re just men who protect what’s ours.

I pull out my phone and text Aria.

It’s done. The person who poisoned Daniel is dead.

Her response comes immediately.

I’m done caring about morality or justice. I just want Danny to wake up.

18

ARIA

Daniel is in a coma for three days.

Three days that feel like three years. Three lifetimes of sitting beside his hospital bed and watching the machines breathe for him. I don’t leave his side for even a moment. The nurses bring me food and a cot, but I turn them both down. They gently suggest that I take a break, just for an hour, just to clear my head.

But I refuse everything. What if Daniel wakes up and I’m not here? What if he opens his eyes and looks for me and I’m gone? What if the last thing he remembers before dying—my throat closes up when I think of that word—is that his mother wasn’t there?

I can’t. I won’t. So I sit in the chair beside his bed, holding his small hand in both of mine, and I talk to him.

Sometimes I tell him about the baby growing inside me and how he’s going to be the best big brother to his baby brother or sister. How his sibling is going to need him to teach them things, to protect them, and show them how much fun pirates and adventures are.

But mostly, I reminisce.

I remember Daniel as a newborn. How impossibly tiny he was, barely six pounds, with a shock of dark hair and those gray eyes that looked so much like Maksim’s even then. He used to sleep on my chest, his small body rising and falling with my breathing. He’d wrap his entire hand around my finger and hold on like I was his whole world.

I remember him at six months, when he first started sitting up on his own. He was so proud of his little party trick and he’d babble and laugh and reach for everything. Daniel loved banging pots and pans together, making noise that drove our neighbors in the tiny Philadelphia apartment crazy.

I remember his first birthday. Just the two of us in that cramped kitchen with a single cupcake with a candle because that’s all I could afford. He’d smashed his face into it, getting frosting everywhere, and I’d laughed until I cried because he was so perfect.

I remember him at two, when he started running everywhere. How he’d laugh this deep belly laugh when I chased him. How he called me “Mama” like it was the most important word in the world. He’d curl up in my lap for stories, his small body warm and solid on mine.

I remember every skinned knee I kissed better. Every nightmare I soothed away. Every fever I monitored through the night. Every milestone. Nearly eight years of memories. Nearly eight years of being his whole world and him being mine.

And now he’s lying in this bed, pale and still, tubes running into his small arms, a machine breathing for him because his body forgot how.

My eyes blur with tears. What if he never wakes up? What if the last conversation we had was me telling him to eat his pasta? What if I never hear his voice again, or see his smile, or get to hold him and tell him how much I love him?

How do I go on if I lose him? How do I wake up every morning knowing my son is gone? How do I raise this baby growing inside me while grieving the child I lost?

I can’t. The thought alone makes me want to stop breathing. So I hold his hand tighter and I talk to him more desperately and I beg him, please, baby, please come back to me.

Maksim is there too, on the other side of the bed. He looks like death. There’s no other way to describe it. His face is gaunt with hollow cheeks. The bruises from the car bomb have faded to sickly yellow-green, making his skin look jaundiced. His gray eyes are bloodshot and shadowed with dark circles so deep they look like bruises. He’s lost weight from refusing to eat.

His dark hair is disheveled, with more gray than I remember, and he hasn’t shaved in days. The stubble on his jaw is thick and uneven, making him look older and more silver fox than anything. If this were a different time, I’d tell him how much I enjoy the scruff. But it’s not the time.

He moves like every breath hurts. I can see him wince when he shifts position, and how he braces his hand against his side when he stands.

But he refuses to rest or take the pain medication that would let him sleep. He needs to be here, just like I do.

On the second day, he breaks.

I’m telling Daniel about the time we went to the zoo when he was three years old and he got scared of the elephants. He’d hidden behind my legs and refused to look at them. I’m smiling at the memory, even though I’m crying because I don’t know if we’ll ever go to the zoo again.

Then I hear a sound from Maksim’s side of the bed. It’s a choked sob that he’s trying desperately to suppress. I look up to see him with his head in his hands, his broad shoulders shaking. His fingers are buried in his hair, gripping so hard it looks painful.

“It’s my fault.” His voice is muffled, breaking on every word. “This is all my fault. You were safe in Philadelphia living as Sarah and Daniel Mitchell. No one knew who you were. No one could hurt you. And I—I dragged you back into this world. I found you and brought you here. I put targets on your backs.”