Page 49 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

"I'll handle it."

"Handle it faster. The boy was just settled." She walks toward the door and Rashid steps aside to let her pass.

She pauses next to me and her eyes linger on Lex for a moment before she looks at my face.

I don't know what she sees there, but she glares at me with cold hatred as she walks away.

Then Rashid turns back to me. "I've submitted DNA samples to my doctor. The results are pending. Until I have confirmation of whether that boy is mine, he stays in this house."

"His name is Aleksandr." I hold Lex tighter and step back from him. "Not 'that boy.' And I'm taking him home."

"This is his home," he says coldly.

"I'm leaving," I say, stepping forward again, but this time he puts his hand on the doorframe and blocks my path entirely. I'm holding a child, so I can't push past him and he knows it.

He's using my own son as leverage against me and it makes my stomach turn.

"Mother," he calls down the hallway, and she reappears so fast I know she was listening from around the corner. "Take the boy."

"No." I twist away but she's already beside me, reaching for Lex with steady hands. This is insane. She can't touch him. He's my son. "Don't touch him. Don't you dare take him from me again."

"Emory." Rashid's voice cuts through my panic. "Give him to my mother before you hurt him."

"I would never hurt him. You're the one hurting him by keeping him here." Tears burn my cheeks again as the woman's spindly fingers try to wrap around Lex's arms.

"You're shaking so hard you can barely stand. Give him to her."

I look down at Lex, who's wide awake now and staring up at me with dark eyes full of confusion and fear.

My arms are shaking so badly I'm scared I might actually drop him, and the thought of it makes me loosen my grip just enough for Rashid's mother to slide her hands under him and lift him away from me.

He reaches back for me and wails.

The sound breaks my heart.

She carries him down the hallway and his crying fades as she rounds a corner. I stand there with my empty arms dripping rainwater on the floor and stare at Rashid through blurred eyes.

"You can stay in this house until the results come back," he says. "You'll have a room, dry clothes, and access to your son at all times. Or you can leave right now, but the boy stays. Those are your options."

"You can't do this," I say, and now I'm whimpering. I know who I'm up against. I know I can't win. I can't even call my father. If he finds out where I'm at and who Lex's father is he may very well disown me. And the Gusevs will have his head, maybe mine too.

"I already have."

Rashid walks past me and disappears down the hallway in the direction his mother went, leaving me standing alone in the room with nothing.

I sink into the chair where his mother was sitting and press my palms against my eyes as my shoulders heave with sobs.

I can't leave my son in this house.

If I walk out that door Rashid could disappear with him and I'd never see Lex again.

It's not an empty threat. He has the money and the means to take that boy anywhere in the world, and there isn't a thing I could do to stop him.

I don't have another option than to stay here and play his sick game. I need to be wherever he is.

But when the time is right and his guard is down, I'm going to take my son and disappear so completely that not even Rashid Krasnov will be able to find us.

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