Page 63 of The Pakhan's Secret Baby

"Nobody touched us."

His body gives out, and Emory catches him as he pitches forward, easing him back onto the cot and sitting beside him with her arm around his shoulders. He drops his head into his hands and sobs hard while Emory holds him, rubbing her hand across his back and whispering to him while he shakes against her. She pushes his hair back from his forehead and comforts him like a mother, only making the pit of jealousy I feel worse.

Oleg recovers enough to pull back from Emory, wiping his nose on his sleeve as he studies her face again. "How are you here, Em? How did he find you?"

She glances at me over her shoulder, then turns back to her father and takes his hand. I can see her working up to something—the way her throat moves when she swallows and the way she won't look at either of us for a second.

"Lex is his, Batya," she says quietly. "Aleksandr is Rashid's son. He tracked me down and found out about Lex and then..." Her shoulders fall in shame. "He took us both." It's not the entire truth, but I feel somehow oddly spared by that confession—that she isn't painting me as a child abductor, just a monster.

Why?

Oleg goes very still. Emory is bracing for the explosion, I can see it in the way her shoulders tighten and she clenches her jaw, but it doesn't come. The old man's red-rimmed eyes move from Emory to me and back again. Then his expression drops and he sighs hard.

"I always assumed the boy was his," he says, almost to himself. "From the day he was born I could see it. And you were at that club... didn't come home that night." He looks utterly defeated now, like his worst fears have come true. "I never said anything because I didn't want to believe it, but I've known since the beginning, Em."

She stares at him and I can see the hurt registering before the anger, which is unusual for her. Emory has a feisty temper, just like me. "You never once said a word to me about it."

"What was I supposed to say? You already knew the truth and you were doing everything you could to keep that boy safe from both sides." He squeezes her hand and then lets it go, turning to face me with more composure than I've seen out of him since my men dragged him through my front gate. "I targeted you on purpose, Mr. Krasnov."

Devid shifts away from the wall where he's been relaxed, and his shoulders square, hand reaching for his weapon. Rostov's confession changes nothing. Whether it was targeted or coincidental, the damage is the same. It's what we do moving forward that matters right now.

"When I sold your routes to Gusev I knew exactly what would happen," Oleg continues, sitting straighter on the cot. "I knew you'd trace the leak back to me, and assumed you'd steal my family to manipulate me." I'm not sure what's more disgusting—a man who'd put his own daughter and grandson in danger by his skimming, or one who'd actively give them up to his enemy. "And once you saw the boy I knew you'd put it together, because he looks just like you and there's no hiding it."

Oleg's body seems to shrink now, wilting before my very eyes as Emory pulls away from him with her hand covering her mouth. The pain in her expression is excruciating to look at. Feeling that level of betrayal from a parent isn't something you get over easily—I know. I've experienced it personally.

"You sabotaged my operation so I would come looking for your daughter?” I ask, still in disbelief.

"I sabotaged your operation so you would take her. Gusev was going to kill us, Krasnov. It was just a matter of time. I couldn't get us out of the country because I gambled the money away, and I couldn't protect them from men with guns showing up at our apartment whenever they felt like it."

He pauses, and his jaw works for a moment before he gets the rest out. "But you could. You have the men and the money and the will to fight, and I knew if you found out you had a son you would move heaven and Earth to claim him. Even if it meant I had to die to make it happen."

"Batya, stop," Emory says, gripping his arm and shaking him. "Tell me you didn't do this."

"It's all my fault, Em. Every bit of it." His voice thins out but he doesn't look away from her. "You and Aleksandr aren't safe out there anymore because of what I did, and I can't undo it. But he can keep you safe." He nods at me. "He can do for you and the boy what I should have been doing all along."

Emory turns away from him, pressing her hand over her mouth again as her shoulders start to shake. The wail that erupts from her is horrific. I have to look at the wall for a second because something about it gets under my skin. I have a strange urge to comfort her, and hold her until the pain is over.

"Get her upstairs," I tell Devid quietly. I'm ready to tear this fucker limb from limb, and yet I have an overwhelming surge of gratitude welling up too. He may very well have saved her life, the poor bastard.

Devid crosses the room and takes her arm, guiding her toward the stairs. She doesn't fight him this time. Oleg tells her he loves her, repeating it over and over until the door shuts at the top of the stairs and cuts him off.

I can't act on this rage or I'll regret it tomorrow when Emory has more questions. She'll be angry and want answers, but at least Oleg has given her a reason to stay put here. She's safe.

"If your intel on Gusev checks out," I tell him, "we talk about what happens next. Perhaps we can work out an arrangement." Who knows what else he knows about Gusev that could be useful?

"It'll check out," he says without lifting his head.

"This isn't forgiveness, Oleg. Your daughter is the mother of my son, and that's the only reason you're still breathing." Well, not the only reason, but a big one.

I leave him sitting there to sulk and march up the steps. Mikhail locks the door behind me as I turn toward the sound of Emory's crying.

The nursery door is open at the end of the hall and I can see the glow of the lamp as I approach. Emory sits in the rocking chair with Lex against her chest, rocking him slowly, her cheek resting on the top of his head. Her face is still wet, but her breathing is evening out. When she looks up at me in the doorway I'm braced for the usual fire, but it isn't there. Whatever I'm looking at right now, I've never seen it from her before.

She looks utterly broken and torn down the middle, like she's been tasked with choosing between one love and another, and she's chosen me. The bitterness in her face isn't anger, it's sadness, and she isn't hiding it well.

"Do you want to hold your son?" she asks me.

I stand there for a moment, looking at her and at the boy sleeping against her chest. Then I cross to her and she rises, easing Aleksandr into my arms carefully, adjusting his head against my shoulder before she lets go.