Chapter 7
Daniil
I saw it, knew in my heart it was true, but it doesn’t hit home until she admits it.
She had my child.
My son.
A little boy named… Micah.
My heart is racing and suddenly I’m afraid I might be the one heaving into the toilet next.
This was nowhere on my radar. I never dreamed she not only got pregnant but hid the pregnancy from me and almost everyone she knew. That she went to such great lengths to hide him from me is mind-boggling, and it’s like a knife to the heart.
How could she be so cruel?
I just don’t understand what I did to deserve this kind of treatment.
“Well?” she asks, folding her arms across her chest. “Now you know. Are you going to take him from me?”
“Take him…” My head is spinning, and I’m not sure which emotion to tap into first. The angry, betrayed part of me wants to rage—yell, scream, and throw things.
How could she hide my son from me? In what universe is that okay?
Even if she didn’t want to be with me, which is blaringly obvious, I deserve to know my child.
Meanwhile, the politician in me is trying to figure out how to spin this, to make things right—for her and for me. For us to come to an understanding for the child’s sake.
Worst of all, the man in me is heartbroken.
A woman I was genuinely into—whom I caught feelings for almost immediately—dislikes me so much that she hid my child from me.
That’s the part that wins the internal struggle, and I try to articulate something that makes sense.
When I come up with nothing, I say, “Why would you do this?”
My voice sounds weird, like a man on the brink of losing control. Because that’s what I am.
“Why?” She stares at me like I’m an idiot. “You have to ask? You can’t think of a single reason why I would hide the fact that you have a son?”
“No!” I snap, controlling my voice despite the anger brewing just beneath the surface, threatening to explode in a torrent of fury. “I can’t think of a single reason.”
“Why don’t we sit down?” Landon suggests quietly. “Standing here isn’t going to solve anything, and emotions are high. Let’s relax and have a conversation like adults.”
Landon is as tough as they come, and most people listen when he talks.
I’m not most people.
“Give me one damn reason,” I say to Courtney, ignoring Landon.
“I’ll give you a date and see if you can figure it out,” she says, her face suddenly tight with emotions that are difficult to read. “March twenty-fifth.”
“March twenty-fifth? I have no idea what that means.”
“I think you do, Dan.” Marcus speaks for the first time, and I turn to him in annoyance.
“What?!”
“March twenty-fifth is the day the twins were born.”
“The day the twins—” I cut off abruptly as it hit me.
Fuck.
March twenty-fifth is the date of the last attack. The day the palace was overrun by a group of rebels that have been after my family since we re-took power. The Bojovnik Brat. A group of Georgian wannabe gangsters who’ve been thorns in our side for a couple of years now.
They bribed a handful of guards, murdered a few more, and got in during a time Erik, Sandor, and I were all away from the palace. The goal, we believe, was to take Prince Levi, maybe the queen as well, and use them as bargaining tools to gain power.
Courtney and Lennox made sure that didn’t happen.
Lennox, eight months pregnant with twins.
Courtney, a military woman on leave visiting a friend.
Things would have gone sideways if not for Courtney’s quick thinking, stepping in without hesitation. Ultimately, she was the one who saved Casey and Levi when Lennox couldn’t. And we are all eternally grateful.
I just don’t understand the correlation between those events and her hiding my son from me.
“Courtney…” I stop talking because my head is still spinning. I have a million questions—most of them centered around the theme of why the fuck she would do this to me—but I’m somewhat mesmerized by the tow-headed baby in her arms.
He looks healthy. Happy. Well-taken-care-of.
Of course he does.
And he looks just like me at that age.
“Let’s sit,” Grim says more firmly this time, giving me a look that brooks no argument.
Could I fight him and win? Probably. Maybe. But to what end? Why make this harder than it already is. Courtney is obviously distressed. Marcus is torn and confused. Grim is going to protect his family—Courtney is his half-sister, and I know they’re close.
I sink into an armchair and wait.
I’m not leaving without answers, but there’s plenty of time to figure out what to do next. Short-term, it gets me nowhere to continue butting heads with Courtney. And as frustrated and hurt as I am, the fact that my presence upset her so much she threw up—that doesn’t sit well with me.
“Courtney.” Grim looks at his sister and whatever unspoken message passes between them, she finally sinks onto the couch. Next to Marcus.
“Hey, bud.” Marcus immediately turns, touching the baby’s feet and making him giggle. “You’re a big boy.”
Micah smiles, drools, and then turns shyly to his mother, burying his face in her shoulder.
Fuck.
That’s my son.
I’ve never so much as touched him. Held him.
And it’s a totally different feeling than those I had when Jesper brought Charlie and Briony home. They were cute. Innocent.
Micah is mine.
I can’t explain it any other way.
“Can we start at the beginning?” I ask finally.
Courtney nods but doesn’t look at me, absently bouncing Micah on her knee.
“I found out I was pregnant about two months after I left Limaj the last time,” she says, her voice hollow, distant.
Like she’s going back in time. “I’d dislocated my knee right before my trip to Limaj, so I thought the fatigue I was feeling was because I wasn’t in the gym as much.
Once I figured out I was pregnant, I didn’t know what I was going to do but abortion was…
well, it just wasn’t an option. I wanted to want to, but I couldn’t bring myself to do it. ”
Thank God.
I don’t know why I feel that way because I don’t have an opinion on women’s choices, but this is my kid. Of course, if she’d done that, we wouldn’t be here now.
“I put in my retirement papers as soon as I found out,” she continues.
“But I had five more months on my contract. They gave me a desk job, and I used that time to get my private investigator license.” She glances at Grim.
“It was Landon’s idea, and Chains offered me a job doing desk work over there too.
But they require all employees to have a PI license, so that’s what I did.
” She’s staring off at nothing, no emotion in her voice at all as she talks.
“I didn’t know what I was going to do about the baby, but my first priority was survival.
Getting a job outside of the military. I’d been dealing with some anxiety anyway, so it felt like the right time to find a new path.
” She stops as Micah starts getting antsy.
She reaches down and grabs a small baseball bat-shaped stuffed toy and hands it to him, which seems to quiet him down.
“And through all of that it never occurred to you to…call me?” I ask.
“Of course it occurred to me. I just…” Her eyes meet mine guiltily. “Ultimately I decided not to.”
“Were you ever going to tell me?” I ask, trying to hide the myriad emotions that are making it hard for me to process all of this.
“I don’t know,” she whispers, looking down at the baby, instinctively hugging him closer to her.
Her body language tells me she’ll panic if I ask to hold him, so I hold off for now.
“I need to understand, Courtney,” I say finally. “Can you explain it to me? Please?”
“I don’t…” She looks at Marcus and then at Grim. “We should—”
“We should give them privacy,” Grim says, abruptly standing up. “Let me take the baby, Court.”
She hesitates.
“Court. It’s me.” Grim holds out his arms. “Come on. You need to talk, and he’s going to distract you.”
It takes a minute, but she finally relinquishes the baby and Grim and Marcus leave the room.
“I already told you why,” she says the moment we’re alone. “You’re just being dense.”
“Because of the attack at the palace?” I ask in confusion.
“Yes!” When she looks up the fire is back in her eyes, which is both hot and infuriating.
“What if that were me?” she continues. “Eight months pregnant with your baby. With those intruders on our tails. On Casey and Levi’s tail.
You would have left me behind to get them to safety, right? Just like I had to leave Lennox.”
I open my mouth, but nothing comes out.
This is all about the attack. Well, not just about the attack but now I understand where she’s going with this.
“Right?” she presses when I don’t respond. “That’s the oath you took—to protect the royal family first and foremost.”
“Yes, but—”
“And Lennox made me leave her there… My pregnant best friend. In active labor. Curled up in a ball on the floor of a dirty tunnel—while I got the queen and prince out of there.”
“Courtney, it’s not—”
“Would you have allowed Casey and Levi to be captured, or would you have tended to me if I were in Lennox’s position? Obviously, I’m talking about if I was your wife. Pregnant with your child. In that scenario, who would you choose? It’s a simple question, Daniil.”
No, it’s fucking not.
And for the first time ever, I’m uncomfortable as hell answering it.