“What’s she like?”
Camila does a double take. But the second she starts talking, her entire face relaxes. Her eyes soften.
“She’s… amazing,” Camila starts, a tender smile playing across her face. “She’s smart and thoughtful and curious about everything. She’s obsessed with puzzles right now. That’s the only thing she asks for on her birthday, on Christmas. She loves the challenge of solving something. Taking a bunch of broken pieces and putting them together. And books, too, of course. She’s reading now, a little. I send her books whenever I get the chance.”
“What does she look like?” I ask quietly.
“She… she looks a little like you,” Camila says softly. “She was born with blonde hair, but it gets darker every year. She has blue eyes. Not quite like yours. A little lighter. A little gentler. Her nose is mine, though. And she’s got a birthmark on her arm in the exact same location as I do.”
I nod, drinking in the little details and committing each one to memory. I feel like I’ve been parched and marooned on a desert island my entire life, and each tiny thing Cami tells me is another sip of water.
Jo still doesn’t feel real. She still doesn’t feel like mine.
But it’s coming. I can feel it.
“And Maxim doesn’t know?”
“No,” Camila says with a deep sigh. “I was going to tell him about her after the wedding, but now I’m glad that didn’t happen.”
“Who would you have told him was the father?”
“Some random guy, a one-night-stand,” she says. “But… he would have seen through that. And he would have used it against me. And against you.”
She turns her gaze away from me, as though the reminder is too much for her.
“Why didn’t you tell him before?” I ask curiously.
She shakes her head as if she herself doesn’t quite know. “I… I was scared to. I’d kept her a secret for so long that it felt wrong to tell anyone about her until I had some sort of surety that I could trust the person I was telling. I thought marriage would be surety enough. Guess not.”
“No. It would not have been enough.”
I take another step forward, but my body is stiff and unyielding. Like it too needs time to process all these harsh and sudden changes.
“Why didn’t you tell me?”
She meets my eyes for a second before she looks away again. Her shoulders are arched back, but the confidence in her posture seems to crack just a little. She draws in a deep, shuddering breath, and I wonder for a moment if she’s going to cry or break down.
But when she raises her eyes again, she looks as fiery as ever.
“You showed up, after six years, on what was supposed to be my wedding day to another man. You married me against my will and kept me in your home despite my protests. Which part of all that was supposed to make me trust you?”
“I’ll buy that that was your reasoning in the beginning,” I say. “But what about later? When you shared my bed and opened up to me about your life. You failed to mention the most important part of your life.”
Her eyes flash. “I had to protect my daughter.”
“From her own father?”
She moves away from me, forcing more distance between us. “You aren’t her father, Isaak. You’re the sperm donor. Nothing more.”
I snare her arm and pull her towards me. “You should have fucking told me.”
She wrenches out of my grasp. “You didn’t earn the right to that secret.”
“I can protect her!” I roar. My voice echoes in the cramped room.
Cami is all venom. “I don’t want you anywhere near her,” she yells right back. “Not if I can help it.”
“You don’t have the right to make that call anymore.”
Her eyes narrow. “What do you mean?”
“I’m her father, Camila. You can’t keep me from her.”
“No,” she says firmly. “Absolutely fucking not. I will not allow you to involve my child in this world. I don’t want the Bratva for her. She deserves more. She deserves better.”
“What don’t you understand? It’s not a choice, Camila. The moment she was born, she was Bratva. She deserves my protection. She deserves all the rights that come with being my daughter.”
“Stop!” she cries. Her voice is reaching panic levels now. “Stop. You are not her father. Until five minutes ago, you didn’t even know she existed.”
“And whose fault is that?”
“I did what I did to protect her.”
“From me?”
“YES! Yes, from you! Because you don’t care about her. The only thing you care about is the goddamned Bratva. Jo deserves more than a father who’ll use her as a power play to get the upper hand in a family squabble.”
I shake my head in dismay. She doesn’t get it. After all this fucking time, she doesn’t know a single fucking thing about me.
“You really believe I would do that?”
“You did it with me.”
I stare at her coldly, anger superseding every other emotion I’m feeling. “You are not Bratva,” I tell her. “You are not family.”
She veers back as the hurt washes over her features. She looks away to cover her expression, to hide it from me so she doesn’t see how deep I’ve cut her.
But it’s too late.
I’ve seen it all.
And I know what I have to do next.
“Isaak!”
Bogdan’s footsteps rush down the stairs in the wake of his voice. He steps onto the cement floor, completely ignoring the tense atmosphere sizzling between Camila and me.
“I’ve held them off as long as I could, Isaak,” Bogdan tells me. “They have a warrant. We have five minutes tops before they get here. We need to get Camila out of sight.”
“No,” I say firmly. “That won’t be necessary.”
“What?” Bogdan asks, clearly confused.
I turn my gaze on her. “Camila, you’re free to go.”
She stares at me in disbelief. “Wha…?”
“You’re no longer my captive.”
Her face runs through a cacophony of emotions. Confusion, fear, anger, understanding, acceptance. Then it hardens into something I recognize: cold-blooded certainty.
“Isaak,” Bogdan says, moving closer to me. “You’re letting her leave?”
“Yes,” I say firmly. “Take her up to them.”
Bogdan hesitates, studying my face for clues as to what’s changed so drastically in the last hour.
“Now,” I growl.
Bogdan gestures for Camila to follow him. She doesn’t move for a moment. Her eyes rake over my face but I refuse to look at her.
Then, admitting defeat, she follows Bogdan up the staircase and disappears onto the top floor. I stand there in the basement cells for a long time. Long enough for Bogdan to come back down to find me.
“Well?” I ask.
He plops to a seat on the bottom step and rubs the heels of his hands in his tired eyes. “She told them that she was here of her own accord, so there won’t be charges pressed against us.” They’re gone now.”
I nod. “Good.”
“Brother…”
“I need you to do something for me,” I interrupt.
He sighs. “Anything.”
“You found the address I told you to search for?”
He hesitates. “Yes…”