Page 71 of Bought to Bear Bratva Heir

Chapter Twenty-Six

Ilya

Something was going on, and had been going on for years, and it was something I had no part of. An aspect of my life that wasn’t right.

Well, lots of things in my life weren’t right. I’d felt that way since they had wheeled Daisy away for her C-section all those years ago, and then she had died, and I never got to say goodbye. I never got to tell her all the things I had never been able to say to another human being because it was too late.

Only it wasn’t too late. She was alive. Alive and well and carrying my baby—again.

But still—I fell into the chair behind my desk with so much force that it rocked back and almost deposited me onto the rug.

Something wasn’t adding up. It hadn’t been for months, but I’d been too busy hating and punishing her for leaving me to pay it any attention. Now it was all I could think about. In my mind, I went through every conversation we’d had since she had come back into my life.

And the same things kept sticking out to me.

Daisy kept saying that she wasn’t going to be forced away this time, and she said it with the look on her face that told me she meant every word she said, but that begged the question: had someone forced her away from me and Alec the first time?

I’d always thought it was strange that she had the means to fake her own death and start a new life, but, like everything, I had been too busy hating on her to actually think about it.

It was easier to believe she had left us. Easier to hate her and wrap that hate around me like a security blanket for the last six years.

Loving her and hating her were so mixed up in my head; sometimes I wondered which ones were my true feelings. Only deep down I knew.

I loved her. Always had and always would.

Now there was a new baby in the mix, and I needed to find out the truth.

I gave myself twenty whole seconds of hanging my head and trying to catch my breath before I inhaled deeply and straightened. Turning on the computer, my fingers paused over the keyboard.

I didn’t have a clue where to start.

Another sigh fell from my lips as I began to type. I hadn’t looked into the past in so long, especially not my grandfather's personal accounts, but deep down I knew that was where I had to start.

If someone had made Daisy disappear all those years ago, it was him. After all, it had been him that had told me she had died, and he was the only one who would have the contacts and means to do it.

What would I do if I found out he had taken her from me? The old man was already dead, so it wasn’t like I could kill him. But I would hate him.

Well, I hated him more, and I would hate him for eternity.

For hours I went through old files, one by one, and there was nothing, absolutely nothing, until I found one single entry in old bank records. To a nurse for tens of thousands of dollars. And once I found that, everything seemed to flow into my lap. A nurse to take care of her after her surgery, several more payments to lowlife criminals. One to the medical examiner.

Fuck, there had been bodies in that smoking car crash. Bodies that had to be identified with dental records because they were so badly burnt. My grandfather had paid everyone off to make sure I believed she was dead.

People had died for his ruse. He had been so hell-bent on making sure I wasn’t happy that he had killed innocent people. Not that it was totally surprising. The old man had never much cared for who he hurt. As long as he got his own way, nothing else mattered.

Even when it had come to me. He knew I was in love with her. He knew I wanted to spend my life with her, and instead of being happy that his grandson and heir had found someone, he had ripped us apart, and by doing so, had ripped out my heart.

But he hadn’t just taken Daisy away from me and her father, who had died never seeing or hearing from his daughter again because he thought she was dead; he’d taken her away from her child as well.

I couldn’t even imagine the pain and fear she must have felt being torn away from the hospital, still fresh from surgery, and forced to part with her newborn son.

Had they even let her see him? Hold him?

Probably not, and the thought made me feel sick.

Slamming my hands down on the desk with enough force to make the wood creak and groan, I stared at the screen. The university in England where Daisy had finished her studies. He hadn’t paid them. She'd gotten a scholarship fair and square,and he hadn’t even bothered to tell her. He’d made her believe that he had funded her new life. And she would have hated it all.

God, I couldn’t even start to think about what she had been through.