“You’re welcome,” she said, her accent more pronounced than I’d ever heard it. But her attention wasn’t on me, it was on Vedriš. She shook her head slowly. “Jürgen.”
The name was different, but the disappointment in her voice made my heart hurt. “You know him?” It came out a little jerkier than I meant, but it was clear.
“Mama,” Vedriš said, wheezing a laugh that held no humor.
Mama.
I blinked. Wait… “You said he died.”
“I thought he died,” Margareta said and the profoundness of her disturbance echoed beneath each word. “You had them tell me that. You played dead so I wouldn’t look for you.”
The anger grew with every additional syllable.
“You would not approve. You and Papa. He never listened, you didn’t say anything when he threw me away. So why should I care if you knew I was alive or not?”
“Because I am your mother and I would have protected you.”
“Clearly,” Vedriš said on a harsh exhale. “That’s why I’m bleeding right now.” Despite the blood soaking his clothes, he was still moving toward the gun.
“You’re bleeding right now because you were about to kill my granddaughter.”
Granddaughter.
My head spun. What?
Vedriš laughed. It was an ugly, harsh sound. “Did you adopt another child?”
“No,” she said. “This is Elaine Benedict—the daughter of Melissa Benedict.”
The man sobered.
“Andrea is her daughter…”
“Her second daughter. The child she had with Harper Reed.”
He snapped his gaze to me.
“Wait…I was told my father’s name was Yuri Leistung.”
“Yuri—it’s a name he chose for himself when he was a boy and he wanted to pretend he was someone else. Leistung was my mother’s family name before she married my father.” Margareta focused on him again. While her gun never wavered, she didn’t close the distance. “I knew Lainey was your child from the moment I first saw her. But I had no idea what she knew…or how it worked out.”
“So—she is Melissa’s bastard,” Vedris or Leistung or whatever his name was said. “I have no need for a bastard child. Especially not one as weak as a woman.”
“You steal children?” Margareta ignored his statement and switched the topic. “You peddle in the flesh of children?”
“Papa did worse. What do you care? You think I don’t know about your pet Dimitri or how you have kept a hand on Papa’s empire?” He coughed, putting his free hand up to his bloody shoulder. It was a cover, he eased to the right more. “Why should I care how you judge me? Your jewels and furs and art collection—someone’s soul paid for it.”
“Answer my question, Jürgen? Are you a flesh peddler? Do you deal in the misery of children?” Ice cold anger crackled between the words.
“I am a wealthy man with needs and clients. They are no one. Pets. Disposable. Replaceable.” He coughed, gripping his wounded shoulder as he tried to stand. “Even the little cunt there. She would bring a decent price, might even be worth the trouble she’s caused me.”
Margareta stared at him.
“Disappointed, Mama?”
She tilted her head, her expression solemn. “I’ve already mourned you.”
“Wha—”
She shot him and the boom of sound shocked the shit out of me.
A second shot.
Finally a third.
She shot him twice in the chest. The third shot went between his eyes.
I stared at his body and then I looked at Margareta. She’d lowered the gun, but she hadn’t put it away.
Running feet echoed down the tunnel resolving into Bodhi as he skidded around the corner. Blood marred his face and his hands and soaked into his shirt. But I’d never seen a more beautiful sight. His gaze went to me and then past me to where Jürgen or whatever his name was lay dead and bleeding in the empty tunnel.
Freddie was just there and Liam. Kellan also appeared from the other direction. Had they followed Margareta? Maybe it should have surprised me, but Dimitri strolled up to join us.
“I’m going to check his pulse,” Bodhi said, putting a hand on my arm as he stepped between me and Margareta. He swept me from head to toe, and his eyes narrowed when he looked at my face.
“I’m alright,” I promised him, even if the shaking was already beginning to hit.
He nodded once, then went to the body. Two fingers on a pulse point.
