CHAPTER 3

ALEKS

The car ride was silent, an uncomfortable silence I would have never before associated with me and Luk. When I saw him for the first in years, I'd simply broke. I fell back to old habits. Bad habits I shouldn't have formed in the first place. I sought his arms around me because I knew it was the only thing that would dim the pain I'm feeling. I told him my fears. I made myself vulnerable to him. I proved to myself that even after all these years, I was still in love with Leukas Hunter. Leukas, who as far as I can tell, was furious at me.

Leukas would never be accused of being the chattiest person on earth and his default expression was and had always been neutral, a carefully constructed mask over any thoughts or feelings he might have. But he had once been my Luk. I knew him more than myself. I spent a year dreaming about him before we even became friends and I spent months dreaming with him when he became my reason to live in a world that kept kicking me down. I knew that the only thing in his body he couldn't control was his eyes. They had always changed color according to his feelings. The dark green color with rings of fiery gold at the center have always meant his quite anger. An anger that was silently deadly. An anger that had never, till now, been aimed at me.

I could understand why he would be. I'd hidden his kids from him for years and the first time he found out about them was when they were in mortal danger. But he had to understand me. I'd seen the doubt in his eyes when we last spoke. I'd seen the disappointment when he found out the truth about me. I saw his resignation in his eyes when I denied all of Ashley's accusations. I couldn't have stayed. I'd known all my life what happens when your story isn't believed. When trust is shaken. And if I hadn't known then that I was carrying the children of the love of my life, I would have accepted my fate in Leukas' hands. I would have taken anything he had to give; his anger, his hatred, and his hurt. That's how much I had loved him: how much I still loved him. That's how much he had come to mean to me. But I couldn't. Because I finally had something more to live for. Something that was mine. Two someones actually, someones who where a product of my greatest and only love. Someones I loved more than Leukas himself. The thought that today could be the day I lost my kids brought me back from my reverie. I would have died if something happened to them.

Jason had left with an army of men a couple of hours ago. He'd agreed to help me when we were at the restaurant, with the condition that I do whatever it takes to grant parental rights to Luk should he so require. I had agreed to his terms. I would have done anything for his help. With the number of Alex's men and allies, I had been greatly outnumbered on my own. Another condition, the harder one, had been that I stay behind with Lanthe and let him handle it, until Leukas came, that is. They had called him immediately and he'd flown from New York to London. And now here we were, a bombshell on top of him which I'm sure he was still reeling from, and me with my messy feelings and fears. Fears for children Leukas might have never gotten to know.

I didn't even notice when we arrived at our destination until we parked at a simple cabin in a desolate area. My heart stopped when two kids, unharmed and healthy, ran towards me with their arms open and relieved smiles on their faces. The last thirty-six or so hours flashed before my eyes like a movie montage of some sort. Me going to the twins' school to pick them up. Their teacher informing me that their uncle, a Russian man came and picked them up with a signed note from me. Me getting a message from my ex on the phone. Me calling Lander in stunned panic. Him telling me to calm down and bring out the big guns, the waiting, the meeting with Jason, the planning, the waiting for Leukas, the collusion of my past life with the new one I'd carefully constructed to never meet, the thought of the future, my kids in front of me, well and good; everything went black for moment but I didn't allow myself to pass out.

LEUKAS

I remembered myself. I remembered the one-year-old me. I remembered how I'd looked back then, how I'd felt, what I thought about and basically everything since then. So there was no doubt in my mind that the little boy currently talking to Aleks while holding the hand of the prettiest little girl protectively was mine. Everything about him was familiar. His pale skin, his mane of blonde curly hair that would grow to become just a bit more tamed and with different shades of blonde in each streak, his expression that even at such a young age expressed little and his eyes that, without his permission, showed his fear, his wariness of all the strange people in this room and his worry for his clearly anxious mother. It was like watching a reflection of myself. A reflection I hadn't known I'd possessed. The little girl clutching a purple panda doll while practically clinging to Lander as well as her brother, was familiar to me too. She looked like the best mixture of the three women who have ever meant something to me and her skin was less pale than her brother's as a result. Her eyes and her nose were my mother's but her bone structure and her pretty face was all Aleksander. Her slightly pointy ears and bow lips where an exact replica of my little sister. I had no doubt that they were my kids. Kids I'd made seven years ago but had no idea about. Kids I'd loved from the moment I first saw them. Six-year-old kids I had been denied by the woman I had once trusted with my life.

**********

"What happened?" I asked Jason, the beginnings of a headache making my head a bit dizzy. He'd pulled me outside the cabin but I could see inside the house through the transparent window. I could see my best friend, one of the few people who had ever connected to me before he'd practically ghosted me, the little girl, my little girl, in his arms while he spoke to a slightly less anxious Aleks. The day was becoming a little bit too much for me. I'd never been so blindsided in my life. I always had my life under control. At least I had since seven years ago when I'd grown up and decided to be better. To be stronger. To seize control of my very being. But again, Aleks happened, and in three hours, she had flipped my very existence into mysteries and secrets and fuck knows what else, just like when she had left. I hated her for it. I hated her for leaving. I hated her for hiding my kids. And I hated her because only she was so deep into my skin I still cared enough to have had expectations of her.

My father sighed and leaned against a black Mercedes. "Where do you want me to start?" he asked.

"At the beginning. I don't… I have no idea what just happened here. Tell me what you know." I responded.

"Well, Lander cashed in on a favor that I owed him and asked me to meet and talk to a friend of his as soon as I could. It is pure coincidence that I happened to be in London to sign a few things so I agreed. Imagine my surprise when a girl once introduced as my son's friend, the friend he has been turning over the world looking for, arrives and practically begs me to save grandchildren I know nothing about from a Russian Mafia Gang. Am I right to assume that you as well had no conception that your…'friend' mothered your kids?"

"No! No, of course not. How could you ask that? I would have never abandoned my kids. You know that." I shouted, the little control I have slowly slipping away.

"Relax." Jason said the word in a careless manner he used with everyone but his wife and his younger kids. It had me grinding my teeth and fighting not to do something crazy. Like punching my dad for example. His almost bored demeanor wasn't what I need at that moment and I wouldn't have been surprised if he had somehow known about the children way before Aleks approached him, and had simply kept it to himself because I had told him to stay out of my business when he'd tried to help me when Aleks had first gone missing. He tended to take dismissals like those ones quite literally and I wouldn't have been the only one to regret saying something like that to Jason when it came back to bite me in the ass. I'd rather not have known anyway.

"But, in case you've forgotten, you are engaged to a woman whose father is not going to be very pleased about you having kids with another girl." He said evenly.

"He doesn't have to know." I said with my teeth clenched. In the chaos that my day had been, I had forgotten my upcoming nuptials.

"So what? You'll marry Fletcher then when you live together you'll hide the kids from her? You'll also deny your kids all the benefits that come with your surname? And what, they'll be your dirty little secrets? I must say, their mother doesn't strike me as someone who would be okay with such treatment of her children."

I hated that he was implying that Aleks' opinion mattered more than mine. "She doesn't have to be okay with anything! They are my kids too and I should have a say. She will have no choice."

"She's the woman who evaded both you and the mafia, even while pregnant. I wouldn't let her hear you say that she has no choice. I have a feeling that if she escapes again, the devil himself wouldn't help you find her."

I glared at my dad because what he was saying was irrelevant and I knew he was making fun of me. At that moment I wasn't Leukas the accomplished man, I'd been reduced to the clueless lost child I once was. A child desperate for his father's guidance.

"What do I do then? I can't lose my kids dad." I looked inside the cabin and my eyes met the little boy's curious ones before he looked away again. "Not again. The king can go to hell for all I care."

"Lucky. I got your runaway girlfriend to agree to take the trip home with us before I went to find the kids. So you can show the king to hell yourself. You're welcome." He said before turning and walking towards the car that has just parked a small distance away. It was my mother's car. He stopped when he was halfway there. "And by the way, no blood was spilled tonight. I managed to convince the kidnapper that I had an even bigger grudge against Aleks and I made him an offer he couldn't resist. I also promised him I wouldn't harm him in any way. You know I always keep my promises. It would be a real shame if someone else; someone who was really pissed off by his actions somehow …retaliated."

Anger flared through me as I thought of the faceless man who had threatened my kids' lives and made Aleks cry. With all that had happened, I hadn't really been focusing on what really brought the whole chaos about. "It would be a damn shame." I responded.