Page 80 of Betrayal and Vows

“Natalia convinced my father I wasn’t his. Told him my mother was sleeping around, dragging his name through the mud. That she had been pregnant when they got married.”

He pauses, eyes going distant.

“She convinced him I wasn’t his son. That I was a threat. That she could give him a true heir.”

I cover my mouth. “Mikhail.”

He nods once. “He believed her. Or maybe he just wanted to. Either way… he ordered us gone.”

There’s renewed ringing in my ears. “Gone… as in?—”

“He sent a man. A soldier. Loyal. Or at least bought. He stabbed my mother and me both. Set the house on fire to cover the bodies. But I didn’t die.”

Unchecked tears flow down my cheeks. I can’t stop them. My heart hurts for the little boy lost. “How—how did you survive?”

He offers the faintest hint of a smile remembering something beautiful inside a nightmare.

And then it’s gone.

“A woman found me in the woods, near death. She had nothing to offer really. It was just a shack and a name no one cared about. But she saved me. Nursed me for weeks. I don’t know how I lived. Just that I did. And I stopped being Alexei. Started being Anton. Anton Malikov.”

The scar on his chest. The burn on his upper arm. Suddenly it all fits.

And once again I’m crying.

I don’t know what to say to him.

“I always thought they’d come back for me,” he says. “But they didn’t. They never even looked.”

I can’t speak. I just reach for him.

He lets me.

His head bows, and he presses his forehead to mine. “You were the first person in thirty years who made me wish I’d been found.”

Tears continue to fall. I should be afraid. Should be running from everything this means.

But I can’t. Because all I want to do is hold him.

“I would’ve loved you even if your name was Devil,” I whisper.

He huffs a broken laugh. “Good. Because it might be before this is over.”

We don’t sayI love you. But the air is soaked in it.

“Your father?—”

“He’s not my father,” he hisses.

I understand the vehemence. “Does he know who you are?”

“No. I don’t think so. He believes I’m dead.”

I want to ask why he works in the organization, but I know why. Anton is out for revenge.

“Am I part of your revenge?” I whisper.

He jerks back and then grabs my face. The fierce Anton is back. “No. Never. I would never use you.”