Chapter 19

• RAINA
• Alex had to have gone mad. Completely unhinged, and he seemed barely able to recognize it. His anger, though, wasn’t what had thrown me off balance—it was the regret flashing in his eyes. Regret, as if he had the right to feel any of it after all this time. I had no use for his regret now. If anything, I wanted him to regret nothing, to see his mistakes clearly so that his guilt wouldn’t interfere with what needed to be done. I’d made a grave error myself, though.
• Why, why, did I have to let it slip? Dominic was my brother, not some stranger or lover for Alex to fight over, but that fact had been meant to stay buried until I’d gotten Liam out of his life entirely. There’d been no other way to ensure he wouldn’t pull something at the last minute, some sudden moral epiphany that would make him claim I had no right to keep his son from him. But now it was out. He knew Dominic was my brother. And the look in Alex’s eyes told me he would use this knowledge somehow, that he’d use it to upend everything I’d set in motion.