"For six years, I've lived with the fear that one day, you'd walk back into our lives and tear everything apart."
His laugh is cold. "Mission accomplished."
I look up at him, feeling at his mercy. "He's happy, he's settled, he's…"
"Mine." The word reverberates through the room. "He's mine, Katerina."
"He's not yours." I lift my chin, straighten my body as a surge of fierce protectiveness floods through me. “You don't get to disappear for seven years and then claim ownership of my child. I carried him. I birthed him. I've been there for every fever, every nightmare, every scraped knee." My voice grows stronger with each word. "Where were you when he cried for a father? When other children asked him why he didn't have a dad?"
“It’s not my fault?—”
“The hell it’s not.” I step toward him, closing the distance I just created. "You want to know something, Luca? If you try to take him from me, I'll kill you myself."
The words aren't empty.
I feel the truth of them burning in my blood.
I would put a bullet between those gray eyes before I'd let Luca tear Enzo from the only life he's known.
Luca's eyes flash with something dangerous, something feral. It's the look of a predator backed into a corner, wounded but ready to strike. “Did my father know? When he forced me out, did he know you were carrying my child?”
What is he talking about? He’s the one who left, deserted the family.
“Don’t try to rewrite history, Luca?—”
He lets out a dark, derisive laugh. “I’m not the one who rewrote history.” He shakes his head. “I get that everyone else would believe it, but you… I thought you knew me better.”
“Don’t put this on me,” I snap. “I knew you, Luca. I knew how things were with your family. I knew you wanted out. And you got out. Built your own empire in Chicago. Congratulations. Now you can go back and leave us all in peace again.”
He shakes his head. “Not happening. When do I get to meet my child, the one you kept from me?”
“You weren't kept from anything. You left us."
"Us?" His eyebrow arches. "There was no 'us' for me to leave. You never told me about him."
"Would it have mattered? Let's be honest about what you are to Enzo. A sperm donor." I spit the words with all the venom I've stored up since the day he left. "Nothing more."
The muscle in his jaw twitches. I've struck a nerve, and the wounded, abandoned part of me is glad.
"That's bullshit and you know it." His voice is deadly quiet. "What we had was real. Even if you hate me now, you didn’t hate me then."
"What we had?" I scoff. "What exactly did we have, Luca? A few heated months before you disappeared without a trace?"
He steps closer, eliminating the space between us until I have to tilt my head back to maintain eye contact.
Heat radiates from his body, and memories flood back unwanted.
His hands on my skin, his lips on my neck, whispered promises I was fool enough to believe.
"You know it was more than that." His eyes drop to my lips for the briefest moment. “Even now, when you hate me, there’s more.”
I hate that he's right. Hate that despite everything, my pulse quickens and my skin tingles with awareness of him. Hate that after seven years, he can still make me feel this way with nothing but his presence.
I shove against Luca's chest, needing distance before I do something stupid like throw myself in his arms again. "Back off. You don't get to waltz in here and pretend you were some victim."
His hand catches my wrist, not painfully but firmly enough that I can't pull away. "You haven’t been listening if you think I just left. If you think that I woke up one morning and decided to disappear. I was given two hours to get out of New York before they put a bullet in my head."
I freeze, unable to process what he's saying.
