Page 147 of Betrayal and Vows

Anton frowns. “Yeah, I know. I’m supposed to be dead.”

“I got you out,” she says softly. “Juliette promised to raise you as her own.”

My heart skips a beat.

I look at Anton who’s staring at my mother. “Itwasyou,” he says. “The park. It was you.”

Mom smiles and reaches out, her hand cupping Anton’s cheek. He doesn’t pull away. “Oh, sweet boy. I’m so sorry I didn’t get there sooner. I tried. I couldn’t save her, but you were still alive.”

I watch my mother's face transform as she speaks. I see the young, scared woman she must have been thirty years ago. The woman desperate to save her best friend’s child.

"I got word about the hit three hours before it was supposed to happen," she says, her voice barely above a whisper. "One of Vadim's men had a conscience. He called me, told me to warn Irina."

Anton's breathing has gone shallow. I reach for his hand. I want to shoulder some of his pain.

"I drove like a madwoman through the city. Ran every red light, broke every traffic law. But I was too late." Tears stream down her face now. "The house was already burning when I got there. The smell—God, the smell of smoke and?—"

She can't finish. My own tears start falling as I imagine my mother, barely older than I am now, racing through flames to save her best friend.

"I found her in the kitchen," Elena continues, her voice breaking. "She was still breathing, barely. She grabbed my hand and said one word: 'Alexei.' I knew what she meant."

Anton makes a sound and it feels as if my chest is cracking open. It’s half sob, half growl.

"I found you in a closet where she'd hidden you. You were unconscious and bleeding. Your little body was so still, I thought—" She stops, pressing her hand to her mouth. "I thought I was too late for you too."

I'm crying openly now, watching this man I love learn the truth about the worst day of his life. About how close he came to dying with his mother.

"There was a nurse, Katya. She owed me a favor. I carried you to her apartment, and she worked on you for hours. Stitched up the gashes on your little body, treated you for smoke inhalation. You were delirious with fever for three days."

"I remember being sick," Anton whispers. "Someone singing to me."

"That was Katya. She has a beautiful voice." My mother wipes her eyes with shaking hands. "But we knew they'd keep looking for you. They don’t leave loose ends. If anyone discovered you were still alive, they would have finished the job.

"So you killed him," Anton says flatly. “You killed Alexei Orlov.”

"I gave you a new name, a new life. Juliette was my cousin. She lived in Belarus, far from Moscow, far from the Bratva. She was lonely, couldn't have children of her own. She promised to love you like her own son."

I watch Anton process this, see him trying to reconcile the fragments of memory with this new truth.

"She did love me," he says quietly. "For the little time I had with her."

My mother’s face hardens, anger flashing in her eyes. “I didn’t know until years later that she sold you to them. To the Center.”

“She sold him?” I gasp.

“I could have no contact with her. It was too risky. She told me she got sick and couldn’t take care of him. She sold him. It took me a while to find him but I did. I hoped you had forgotten who you were. I was wrong.”

Anton says nothing.

“You came back at sixteen, full of rage. You’d grown too dangerous by then, Anton.”

“You knew who I was?”

“Of course,” she says softly and shrugs. "I promised Irina I would keep you safe. You are a very difficult person to keep out of trouble.”

Now, I’m smiling.

The idea of anyone protecting Anton is comical. Or telling Anton what to do.