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“This nice lady is going to give you some cookies. Do you like cookies?”
Anya’s face lights up. “Yeah!” She turns to look at Rosie. “Can I have milk too?”
“Of course,” I answer before Rosie can speak. I glance at Daria. “Give her some milk as well.”
Daria nods with a warm smile and holds out her hand. “Come with me, little one. We have chocolate chip cookies.”
Anya takes her hand after one last look at her mother and follows her toward the kitchen.
The second they’re out of sight, I straighten and walk straight into the bedroom, holding the door open for Rosie. She follows me in reluctantly. I close the door behind us.
“Start talking,” I say.
She stands there, silent, just staring at me with wide, terrified eyes.
“Rosie,” I growl her name.
She swallows hard, her throat working visibly. “If you’re asking if Anya is yours… yeah. She is. Apparently condoms aren’t one hundred percent.”
I stare at her, stunned into silence for a long moment.
“I have a daughter?” The words feel foreign on my tongue. “I have a daughter… and you didn’t think to let me know about her all this time?”
“We didn’t exactly exchange contact information, remember?” she shoots back, but her voice wavers.
She has a point, but it doesn’t ease the storm inside me. The thought that I had a child out there for three years, a daughter I never knew existed, twists something deep in my chest.
“And what about now?” I demand, stepping closer.
“Why didn’t you tell me last night? Or this morning? You had every opportunity, and instead you were packing your stuff and trying to run back to New Jersey.”
She stays quiet, lips pressed together.
I reach out and wrap my hand around the front of her throat, not squeezing, just holding her there so she can’t look away. “Why didn’t you tell me I have a daughter, Rosie?”
She flinches, then suddenly explodes.
“Because I don’t want this life for her!” she screams, eyes blazing with fear and anger.
“Because I don’t want her growing up in your world, with guns and violence and men who shoot at each other in nightclubs! I don’t want her to ever have to look over her shoulder the way I do now!”
“What?”
I step back, needing space before I do something I’ll regret.
Rosie’s voice trembles. “You lead a violent life, Andrei. Barely twenty-four hours after running into you again and I’ve already been shot at. I was hiding behind a bar while bullets flew. I don’t want that for my daughter.”
“She’s my daughter too,” I snap.
“Don't you think I have a say in her life?”
I can feel the fury building in my chest. I turn away for a second, running a hand over my face, trying to rein it in. She hid my child from me for three years. Three fucking years.
When I look back at her, some of the rage has cooled.
“I know you’re scared,” I say, voice lower now. “But you don’t have to be. You’re safest with me. Both of you are. I would never let any harm come to you or our daughter. Never.”
My phone starts ringing in my pocket. I pull it out and answer without looking.
