“He lied to me.” His voice breaks slightly. “My brother. The person I trusted most in this world. He looked me in the eye every day for eight months and lied about where he was going, what he was doing, and who he was seeing. He was with YOU. The enemy.”
“I wasn’t his enemy,” I say, my heart twisting at the memory of Alexei. “We were just... us. Two people who fell in love before we knew what our names meant.”
“And now he’s dead, and you’re here, pregnant with his child, and I—” He runs both hands through his hair, pulling at it like he wants to rip it out. “I married you. I married you to punish your family, to get revenge, and the whole time you were carrying my brother’s baby.”
He starts laughing and it makes the hairs on the back of my neck raise. It’s a terrible sound, broken and wrong.
“The joke’s on me, isn’t it?” He looks at me, and his eyes are wild. “All this time, I’ve been torturing you, making your life hell, and you were pregnant with Alexei’s child. With the last piece of him.And I didn’t even know. He’s been here the whole time, and I didn’t even KNOW.”
“Dimitri—” I reach out before I realize what I’m doing, but he jerks away like my touch would burn him.
“No.” The word is venom. “Don’t touch me. Don’t speak to me. Don’t—” He backs toward the door, his breathing ragged. “I can’t. I can’t even look at you right now.”
My heart seizes. “Where are you going?” I ask desperately.
“I don’t know. Anywhere but here.” He grabs the door handle, yanks it open. “Anywhere that isn’t near you and that—” He can’t even say it. Can’t even acknowledge the baby. “Just stay away from me.”
He slams out of the room, and the sound is like a gunshot.
Then I hear more crashing from somewhere in the house. Glass shattering. Something heavy hitting a wall. A roar of pure rage that makes my blood run cold.
He’s destroying something. Maybe everything. Maybe the whole house.
I curl up on my side, wrap my arms around my stomach, and sob into the pillow until I can’t breathe.
He knows. He finally knows.
And it’s even worse than I imagined.
Because it’s not just about me lying to him. It’s not just about being pregnant with someone else’s child.
It’s about Alexei. His brother.
And now he knows that Alexei kept this huge secret from him. That his baby brother, who he trusted completely, was in love with an Ashford. He was sleeping with the enemy. He was lying to him every single day for eight months.
The betrayal he feels isn’t just from me. It’s from Alexei too.
And Alexei isn’t here to explain, to apologize, or make it right. He’s dead, which means all that rage, all that hurt, all that betrayal has nowhere to go except at me.
I press my hand harder against my stomach. Alexei’s child.Ourchild.
The last piece of him.
And Dimitri hates us both for it.
More crashes echo through the house. Closer now. Right outside my door.
I hear his voice, roaring something incomprehensible. More breaking. The sound of fists hitting walls.
I’m more terrified than I’ve ever been because the man destroying things on the other side of that door isn’t the cold, controlled Dimitri I’ve come to know. That man was dangerous, but predictable.
This man is something else entirely. Something primal and wounded and furious beyond reason.
This man could do anything.
And I’m trapped in here, pregnant and defenseless, with nowhere to run.
So I just cry. I cry for Alexei, who I’ll never see again. I cry for this baby, who will grow up in a house full of hatred. And I cry for myself, for the impossible situation I’m in.
