Chapter 24 Aiden #2
He pulls out of my arms and frowns, looking around the apartment.
“You smell that?”
Sawyer nods. “Get dressed!” I follow him into the room and pull on my clothes. He stabs his legs through a pair of sweats and throws on a T-shirt. Stopping at his door, he slips on a pair of slides, and I follow him down the stairs so fast I’m shocked I don’t trip and take us both out.
The fire alarm blares.
I grab the extinguisher on the way down, rushing into the bakery and freezing when I see three giant men standing there.
“What the fuck,” Sawyer yells.
Two of his tables are on fire, but I can’t look away.
Tagar, Dominic, and Ivan.
No. No, no, no. There’s broken glass littered all over the floor. Sawyer told me his alarm is bullshit. He planned on getting a real one once he opens back up for good. Dominic has a torch in his hand. Tagar looks uncomfortable, maybe even apologetic. The pitying look he gives me slices my skin.
“I called the police,” Sawyer lies.
Ivan smirks. “No you didn’t.”
“What the hell is going on?! I have no money.”
Ivan ignores him, looking around the bakery.
“You know . . . not the career choice I had in mind for you,” he says idly.
“Your mother . . .” He shakes his head. “Always too smart for her own good. Changed her name. Changed Jane’s name.
Hid you away in this tiny fucking town.” He laughs, stepping forward.
“All this time I’ve searched for one thing she stole from me, only to find out she was hiding another. ”
“What the fuck is going on?” Sawyer keeps looking at his burning tables. “I don’t have any money, really.”
“I don’t want your money, and it seems that I’ll have to do this myself.” His eyes slide to mine and a chill unlike anything settles in my bones. “Aiden, you’ve done a lot of stupid shit, but this . . .” He waves a hand between us. “You’re going to wish you were dead.”
Sawyer looks at me, but I can’t meet his eyes. “I told you, it’s not here.” I can’t look at him. I can’t see his face.
“What’s going on?” Sawyer asks me. “Wait. How do you know my mother?”
A slow sadistic grin spreads across his face. Ivan cocks his head. “Fleeing with my daughter is one thing.” He tsks. “But hiding a son?” He chuckles, looking up to the ceiling. “Nisha, you are lucky cancer got you before I could.”
“What the fuck are you talking about? Who’s Nisha?”
Ivan smiles. “There’s so much you don’t know about her.” Ivan shakes his head. “My wife.”
“What . . . I’m not . . . What the fuck?” He keeps looking at his burning tables. Smoke starts to seep into the rest of the room. It needs to be put out before it spreads.
His wife?
“What are you talking about?” I snap.
“You think you’re so fucking smart. Why haven’t you put it together?”
“I named her Irina, and she went and changed it to Jane.” Ivan shakes his head.
“Sawyer? She had such an obsession with old literature. Jane Eyre. Tom Sawyer.” Ivan laughs.
It makes me sick. “So predictable.” Sawyer opens his mouth, but Ivan cuts him off.
My brain is already turning the wheels, and I don’t like where it’s steering me.
“She kept you from your true potential.” He looks around.
“Now you bake cookies for a living.” He scoffs. “Fucking pathetic.”
“He doesn’t just bake cookies,” I growl.
Ivan’s brows pop in surprise. “You are one dumb fuck, Aiden.”
“What the hell is going on?” Sawyer takes a healthy step away from me. I still can’t meet his eyes. Ivan’s leer is on Sawyer and I already know what he’s going to say, but I can’t believe it either way.
“You’re my son.” My limbs go numb. My chest grows tight. “I didn’t even know you existed until Aiden told me about you.” He laughs. “Your mother. Always a firecracker.”
“Aiden—”
“I don’t. Koda, he—” I shake my head. “This doesn’t make sense.”
“Aiden, what the fuck is he talking about?”
I can’t look at him. “I don’t . . . I don’t know. I didn’t know that. I’m sorry, I tried. I tried to . . . I tried.”
“Where is it?” Ivan snaps me out of my thoughts. It’s like my brain is soaked and drowning. I can’t think straight. Everything’s rushing.
“I told you, I don’t know!” I’m not sure why he wants it, but if Ivan wants something, it’s never a good thing.
Ivan turns to Tagar. “Bring her in.” Tagar slides an uneasy look toward me before he turns out of the bakery only to return with my sister in his arms, asleep.
Ivan doesn’t look at them. His hard eyes are piercing into me.
He reaches into his back pocket without looking at her and points a gun to her head.
“No!” I scream.
“Shh,” Ivan smirks. “Don’t want to wake her now, do we? Although with the amount of drugs in her system, she’ll probably sleep through her brains being splattered all over the bakery floor. Now. Where is it?”
I’m shaking so violently I’m going to be sick.
I look at Sawyer, equally as afraid as I am.
“Aiden, what is he talking about?”
I pull my eyes away from him. It hurts too much to look at him. “I’m so sorry,” I say to him, then I look at Ivan. “It’s upstairs. On the counter in the kitchen.”
“What?” I can’t look at him. “What are you talking about?” Dominic ignores him, going toward the back and up the stairs. I hear his boots thud as he walks up.
“You know, this could have been easy.” Ivan cocks his gun and I watch Tagar flinch slightly, hugging Katya a bit tighter.
There’s something in his eyes that passes between us.
“I could have had that statue and been on my way, Aiden, but you destroy everything and everyone you can.” Ivan walks a bit closer.
“What’s happening?” Sawyer whispers.
Dominic returns downstairs with the statue, handing it to Ivan.
“That’s my mother’s!”
“Correction. It’s mine. Your mother stole it when she stole you from me.” He smirks. “Now that one of my possessions is back I’ll also be taking the other.” He nods at Dom who walks over to Sawyer and grabs him. Sawyer thrashes. My heart rate spikes.
“Leave him alone! He had no idea what was going on! Take me. Kill me, I don’t fucking care. Just leave him alone!” I scream.
Ivan shakes his head. “You had your chance, Aiden, and you failed. If I find you anywhere near my property, or Katya, or him, I will gut them both and paint that shitty fucking car of yours with their blood.” He looks at Dom and Tagar and nods toward the door, leaving me stunned.
Sawyer looks back as he’s wrenched forward, and I’ll never forget the hatred he has in his eyes for me.
Then they’re gone.
I take the extinguisher and put out the fire.
I’m shaking. Katya. And Sawyer.
It takes a minute to let it fully sink in. If Ivan is telling the truth, that means Koda and Katya are Sawyer’s siblings. I already know what this means for them. I don’t know what to do or where to go. I can’t show up there alone.
I know Ivan will kill all of us.
You don’t steal from him. His children are his property, and Sawyer’s mother stole him. In Ivan’s mind she stole a solider. Not his son.
I don’t know what to do.
Then it clicks.
Sunday dinner.
I run upstairs, taking the steps two at a time. I don’t know what I’m doing, but for the first time I know I need help. I don’t know if they can help me, but it’s a chance. I need help. I can’t do this alone.
My hands shake the entire drive over.
I need his friends to help me.