Page 194 of Mile High Ex's Dad
“She said she was going to let you believe the baby was yours,” Maksim continues, “long enough to get everything transferred into her and Ethan’s name.”
My eyes burn, but no tears come. I think I’ve used them all. I think there is nothing left in me now except pain and a thin, exhausted thread of disbelief.
Viktor doesn’t move.
Maksim takes another step toward him. “I know you believe in justice,” he says, his voice lowering. “So be quick, before she gets away.”
The silence after that is unbearable.
I sit on the dirty floor, half collapsed beside the man who kidnapped me, my body shaking too hard to hide it, and look at Viktor through the blur of my own failing strength.
I have no fight left to protest.
Just one broken whisper.
“Viktor.”
28
VIKTOR
I standin the doorway and take in the scene.
Ethan is slumped against the wall, unconscious or close to it. Maksim is on his feet, breathing hard, blood at his mouth. Sienna is on the floor in a hospital gown and coat, one hand pressed to her stomach, her face pale and stunned.
For one moment, my mind refuses to arrange it properly.
Then Maksim says, “Thank God you’re here.” His voice is strained. Shaken. Almost relieved.
I look at him. Then at Ethan. Then at Sienna.
She tries to sit up straighter, but her body gives out halfway. She looks at me with wide, terrified eyes, and I see the exact second she realizes what this must look like.
“Maksim,” I say.
He wipes blood from his lip with the back of his hand. “The nurses called me after she disappeared. I had the CCTV checked. She left on her own.”
Sienna makes a small sound. “No.”
Maksim doesn’t even look at her.
“I tracked her here,” he says. “Ethan was already with her. They planned this.”
My grip tightens around the gun in my hand.
Sienna’s face drains completely. “Viktor,” she whispers.
Maksim takes a step closer to me. “She was going to lure you here and kill you. Her and Ethan. She said she’d let you think the child was yours until she got what she needed.”
I don’t answer.
I look at Sienna. She’s shaking. There’s blood on her mouth. Her wrists are raw. Her hair is loose around her face, tangled and damp with sweat. She looks like someone who has been dragged out of a hospital bed, not someone who has arranged a trap.
But Maksim is still talking, and every second I say nothing makes his voice steadier.
“She tried to attack me when I stopped her,” he says.
Sienna’s eyes fill, but she doesn’t plead. Maybe she’s too tired. Maybe she thinks I’ve already decided. Her hand slips from her stomach to the concrete as if she needs the floor to keep herself upright.
