With reluctance, I put my gun back in my pocket.
"It was Jude, wasn't it? He was responsible for what happened to my wife?”
“Yes, he orchestrated the whole thing, but the plan went wrong.”
“In what ways?”
“It wasn’t meant for her, Aiden.She wasn’t supposed to die. That night was meant for you.That was a plot to assassinate you. Except it didn’t work out.”
My lips part and I lower my gun.“What are you saying to me? They were coming to kill me?”
“Yes. They were. He was going to take Gabriella for himself like he planned to for years.He’d loved her since she was a child. When your little mishap happened, Igor gave him the muscle the Order offered to go after a man like you. He wouldn’t have been able to do it before as an associate of the Order. The Voirik were too strong and so were you.”
So it was still my fault. Gabriella’s death was still my fucking fault.I played into the enemies hands. That night will forever burn in my memory. The dead men on the lawn, Gabriella calling for me to save her, the fire and explosion that killed her.
If the night was meant for me, why am I still alive?
“Why didn’t it work out?”
“You took Gabriella’s car. She was supposed to be at work but you went instead.The men were going to take Aleksei from the house and Jude was going to kidnap her at the salon. But she wasn’t there. It was you.”
I close my eyes and remember it all.The fucking nightmare that still plagues me held the answer.
I did take her car.She asked me to. I offered to close the salon for the night because she was so tired. I just wanted her to rest and have time with Aleksei. I left my home that night never knowing what lay waiting for me. I was gone for nearly two hours making sure I did everything the way she wanted it.
She had specific things in her car like balance sheets and stock replenishment she needed in the salon for the next day. I remember even as I took her car, thinking I wished I’d taken my bike or my car. Maybe if I had taken my bike the spy who was watching would have known it was me leaving.
But they got it wrong.
So the fucking person who betrayed me didn’t get that part right.
Who the fuck was it?
Whodid this?
“Someone betrayed me,” I roar.“Who was it?”
“I don’t know, but somebody did. That was the only way Jude would have been able to get in your home and get past your security.”
“And what part did you play in the plot, Persephone?” I glare at her. She knows specific details. She knows the meat of the story like she was part of the plan.
Her sudden silence tells me she was.
“Answer me!”
Her hands tremble. “Aleksei was brought here by one of Jude’s men. Jude had no plans to keep a child that didn’t belong to him, and one who had no mother. He would have done it if she lived. Phillipe was away on business. Jude utilized that and I took care of Aleksei until Dr. Pearson came to pick him up.”
My soul quivers, and for the first time in forever I feel my heart and although it’s cold and dead inside it still breaks.
“You… you had him. My boy.” My hand twitches on my gun and I know if Maksim or Ilya was here they’d expect me to end her. She was part of the plot. While I grieved for both my wife and my child for years she knew my son was still alive and held her silence.
I raise my gun again and she looks to Dominic once more for compassion but he raises his gun too.
“Give us one damn reason why we shouldn’t blow your head off right the fuck now?” Dominic asks, speaking for me.
“I know where Eric Markov is and it’s the same place Dr. Pearson and all the other doctors who took care of children being prepared for sale reported to.”
God in heaven.