Lockdown.
It wasn’t so different from my life for the past three years, except it wasn’t just me and TJ. Now my son would have other kids to play with, other adults to look after him. And most of all, he would have his father, which was more than I could ever give him.
So, yeah, the PI had come through, and I learned that Falcon was still in Steel City and he was still part of the Steel Demons. As for the rest? Only time would tell.
He probably hated me.He had every right to hate me. If I were him, I’d hate me too after the way I left him. With a note. That note wasn’t how I saw my time with Falcon ending, but I’d woken up on that fifteenth day with him, and I knew two things were true. I knew that somehow, I’d fallen in love with him, which was terrifying enough, but I also knew that my ex would never give us a moment of peace. So I scribbled a note and left it for him to find.
We’re too different, I’d written.I can’t stay.
It was complete bullshit, of course, and probably unnecessary given how handsome and charming he was. For me, those two weeks had been magical and erotic and just plain perfect. So perfect that, if not for my ex, I might’ve tried to stay, tried to see if the biker and the surgeon could make it work. But life, and James, had other plans, which involved leaving everything—my friends, my career, and my family—behind in an effort to stay alive.
Barely two months later I learned that I was pregnant, but it was too late to go back, to tell Falcon what we’d created. By then I was living outside Reno and working at a hospital on the reservation just to stay ahead of James. And the Russian mob, it turned out. Those fuckers were everywhere. No matter whereI landed—Nevada, New Mexico, California, Arizona, Idaho, and Washington over the years—they showed up not long after. Usually I got a few months before they somehow tracked me down, but the last stop was Salt Lake City, and I’d only been there for three weeks before they showed up.
That’s when I knew it was time to reach out to Falcon.
“Vivian.” His deep, slightly raspy voice, cut through my thoughts, forcing me to get out of my head and face him. His face was full of concern. And questions.
I blinked a few times until his face crystallized in front of me. “Yeah?”
His lips tightened as he raked a hand through his thick hair. “You wanna tell me why Russian mobsters are chasing you?”
“I guess you need to know.” I said and tried to focus on my deep breathing exercises just to make sure I could get the whole damn story out without breaking down. “It was a routine surgery to repair a leaky valve, but the patient had an adverse reaction to the anticoagulants, and he bled out on the table.” It sounded so simple when I laid it out like that, but that was the easy part. “What I didn’t know until afterwards was that the patient was Alexei Petrov and he was the leader of a criminal organization.”
Falcon frowned. “That doesn’t make sense.”
I laughed bitterly. “Believe me, I’m aware. For some reason they have it in their heads that I killed him on purpose and they want me dead.” It was still completely unbelievable to me how one surgery had upended my entire life. I went from being an up-and-coming surgeon on the brink of a successfulcareer in medicine, to a woman on the run, stitching up whoever could pay her.
“That’s why I left back then,” I met Falcon’s gaze head on. “One of the reasons I left,” I amended. “Every time I came home from yours, I felt like I was being watched. I thought it was…” I paused. At the time I thought it was James, but I didn’t want to bring him up right now. “I thought maybe I was being overly cautious. The hospital was doing their official investigation into Alexei Petrov’s death. They’d cleared me of any wrongdoing, but I was on edge. That last night I got home and someone had broken into my place and destroyed everything. They’d sprayed ‘Killer’ on the wall. I couldn’t stay. I was so scared…”
I knew when I showed up at his place that it would be our last night together. It had to be. I couldn’t risk involving anyone else in my mess.
I saw the minute he realized it too because his eyes flashed with fury before he covered it behind a block of cold steel. “Right.”
“Why did you come back here?” The question came from an angry looking man with shoulder-length dark hair and green eyes.
“Rebel, what the fuck?” Falcon glared at him.
I just shrugged because it was a fair question, especially considering the trouble I had brought to their front door. “I hired a PI to track you down,” I said to Falcon. “I needed to tell you about TJ and, um, leave him here.”
“Leave him,” Falcon said the words through clenched teeth. It wasn’t a question, but it wasn’t a statement either.
I didn’t flinch at his tone, I only nodded. I knew what the words sounded like and I knew what it made me sound like. It would break my heart to leave my boy, but my life was getting too unsafe. “Yeah, leave him. It’s difficult to run with a two year old and TJ deserves better than this. They’re after me, not him. I’ll leave him here with you, his father, and then I’ll go. They’ll get to me eventually, it’s only a matter of time. But this way, TJ gets to grow up safe with his dad.” Again, this wasn’t how I pictured this conversation going, but life loved the fuck out of a curveball, didn’t she?
“Dad.” Falcon repeated the word almost like he was testing it out on his tongue. That one word was filled with awe, but I knew better.
“You see the resemblance,” I said, the words more of a demand than a question.
He nodded absently but there was something on his mind. “What about your fiancé?”
“Ex-fiancé. Is that why you think I left? To go back to him?” Going by the look on his face that’s exactly what he thought. Every set of eyes I spotted stared back at me with a look of disbelief mixed with trust and anger. Frustration burned even though I understood. “Believe what you want but there was no one but you for months before we met and there’s been no one since.”
Those words were met with even more silence, which only served to make me question my decision to ask for help.
I hadn’t banked on Falcon not believing me. He had to, our son’s safety depended on it. “I’m happy for you to do a paternity test to alleviate your concerns,” I began. “But please just let him stay here until the results come in. I’ll keep mydistance until then.” I needed to get used to living without TJ and this would be better than a rip the band-aid off approach.
Falcon folded his arms across his chest, biceps bulging. “And when the results come?”
I tried to ignore the stinging sensation. I couldn’t squeeze my eyes shut or else everyone would know how much this gutted me and they didn’t need to know. I couldn’t share it with them. I didn’t care if they thought I was heartless, dumping my son on a man who was essentially a stranger to him. All I cared about was that TJ would be safe. I swallowed down the tears and opened my eyes to meet his. “When you have your proof, I’ll say goodbye to our son and then I’ll be out of your hair, my Russian tail will come with me. You’ll all be safe.” I swallowed another sob and pasted on a bland smile. “It’s better this way. For everybody.” I wasn’t convinced but maybe they would be.
