Page 68 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

Halfway up the creaking stairs I paused; was that her calling out to me? Above me, something crashed, and I knew it wasn’t.All I’d heard was the house falling down around me, and if it did, then we would both die.

If I took another step, I might die.

But did that really matter now? Daisy needed me. And Alec needed his mom. That was all I needed to know.

Taking a deep breath, I took the rest of the stairs two at a time. Every door on the landing was open apart from one.

One that looked more badly burned than the others, one that was locked.

Hammering my fists on it, I called out for her again. "Daisy, open the door. You can do it." My chest burnt from the lack of oxygen, but I kept beating on it. "Please." I didn’t know whether the tears that were stinging my eyes were from the emotions I was feeling or the smoke. Really, it didn’t matter.

Daisy was in there, and I could not, would not, let her die.

I would never forgive myself, and neither would Alec.

Gathering the last bit of my strength around me, I slammed my shoulder into the wood. It splintered, sending me sprawling onto the carpet.

"Daisy?"

On my hands and knees, I looked around, and there she was. Slumped over under the window like she had tried her best to get out before the smoke had overcome her.

Crawling towards her, I gathered her into my arms. Her face was too pale.

"Daisy, open your eyes, baby, please," I begged. Her eyes didn’t open, but her chest did move. Just slightly. And hope filled my heart.

I wasn’t going to lose her. I’d lost her once before, and the grief had almost killed me as well.

Heaving her into my arms, I carried her out of the house and down to the waiting ambulance.

"And who are you?" The doctor in his white coat stopped dead in the doorway. "You can’t be in here. It’s family only." Coming to the foot of Daisy's bed, he picked up her chart. His eyes narrowed as he read it. "And she doesn’t have any living relatives."

I didn’t move. I hadn’t moved for the last few hours. First when they had wheeled her back to deal with her burns and the smoke that had filled her lungs, and then later when they had wheeled her in here. To the room I demanded she have, with the oxygen mask on her face and the beep of machines all around us.

The last time I had been in a hospital with Daisy, they had wheeled her away from me and told me she had died. I wasn’t risking her being out of my sight ever again.

Slowly, I lifted my eyes to his. If he knew who I was, he didn’t show it. "I am her," pausing, I glanced down at her too-red face. What was I to Daisy? I knew how I felt, how thin the line between loving and hating her was, but I didn’t have a word for what we were.

Destined, maybe, if you believed in that sort of thing.

"You have to step outside."

"She’s the mother of my son," I said finally, tightening my grip on her one good hand. The other was bandaged for the burns on it. "She is family."

"I see." The doctor's lips thinned. Again he looked down at the chart. His eyebrows knotting together. "Well, Daisy is doing well, considering. A few days' rest so we can make sure her burns don’t get infected and that the smoke has cleared from her lungs, and she should be able to go home."

I let out a sigh of relief. She was going to be okay.

"And the baby has a strong heartbeat."

The air left my lungs in a whoosh. "What?"

For a second, he looked sheepish. "I’m sorry, I just thought." Wildly, he looked around. "I thought you would know. As you already share a child. Is this baby not yours?"

Chapter Twenty-Five

Daisy

"Baby, please open your eyes."