Page 24 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

I didn’t want to make him sad, so I reached out and stroked down his cheek. "Would you like to play?" I asked.

He shook his head. "No, I don’t feel like playing, and anyway, Milli is in the playroom. She doesn’t like it when I make too much noise. Probably better if we stay in here and be quiet."

"Sure." My voice shook with uncertainty. "I’d love to talk to you." My mind was going a million miles an hour. Who was Milli? Had Ilya met someone else? Not that I could blame him. He had never loved me; it made sense that he had replaced me.

"She never wants to play. Not until Papa comes home, anyway. Then she just pretends." At his sides, his little fists clenched. "She’s not very nice. Not like you."

"Is Milli your momma?" I couldn’t help the wobble to my voice.

His eyes flashed. "Of course not. Milli is my babysitter. Most of the time she just calls her boyfriend and drinks Papa's burning drink." He shook his head.

I let out a sigh of relief. I don’t know why I hadn’t thought of it before. There was no way Ilya would leave his son alone if he wasn’t here.

"She really shouldn’t be doing that. She should be looking after you."

He nodded his head. "Yeah, but she doesn’t have to now, does she, because you are here." His lips moved upwards in a smile. "I don’t need a nanny because I have a mommy."

The world spun around me. Everything blurred together.

My throat worked and my mouth opened, but the only word that came out of my mouth was a squeak. "Alec."

"You are my mommy, aren’t you?"

I couldn’t breathe. My lips opened and closed like a fish.

"Papa said you were an angel, but I knew it was you. When I saw you. You looked like an angel. And you got sad. Papa has been sad too." His lips twisted. "That’s why he locked this room up."

I swallowed hard.

No wonder it had all looked the same. Ilya had kept my room as some kind of shrine. I didn’t know what to think about that. Why would he even do it when he had wanted me out of his life?

"You were sad last night. Papa was too."

My head snapped around to his. "Your Papa was sad?"

He nodded his head, deadly serious. "I don’t like it when people are sad."

I continued to stroke my fingers over his baby-soft cheek. I’d missed the first six years of his life, but he was right here in front of me, and I couldn’t stop stroking his cheek even as tears sprang up in my eyes.

How could I love someone so much when we had only just met?

"Neither do I," I admitted, forcing my lips up to a smile.

Ten seconds passed where neither one of us spoke, and then he jumped off the bed. "Stay here," he ordered, sounding every bit his father's son. I couldn’t help but smile. Where was I going to go? I was naked.

Fifteen minutes passed before he slipped back in the door and piled a bundle of clothes on the end of the bed.

I stared at them, confused. "Whose clothes are these?" One by one, I lifted them. "Are these my clothes?"

"I got them out of Papa's room. Get dressed so we can escape."

I didn’t even want to think of the implications of why Ilya still had my clothes in his closet after six years.

"Escape?"

Nervously, he looked towards the door, his eyes shifting every which way. "Papa is going to make you sad; I don’t like that. So we are going to run away."

"Your Papa will be sad if you run away, Alec."