Surprise Delivery(92)

“So, what?” he sneers. “Doesn’t mean I can’t still kill you.”

I shrug. “True. But I think if you were going to kill me, you would have given it a better shot when you had the advantage out in the hallway.”

“I’m warming up to it.”

I laugh again, which seems to irritate him. As I think about it, I realize that maybe taunting him isn’t such a bad idea. Brad is irrational, and clearly off his rocker. He’s liable to be sloppy and make a mistake when he finally does work up the nerve to try and kill me. And because I used to do some martial arts when I was a kid and am still in good shape, I should be able to take advantage of his mistakes.

We remain in our standoff – I’ve moved back from him and am standing near the stairs that lead down into the living room area. Brad is still standing in front of the door, clutching his knife. Given that I know who he is, he finally peels his mask off and drops it to the floor at his feet. He looks at me with the rawest, most visceral hatred I’ve ever seen in a person’s eyes.

“You do realize you’re not good for her, don’t you?” Brad asks.

“How do you figure that?”

“I know your type, Duncan,” he sneers. “You’ll eventually get bored with her. You’ll get tired of playing a family man. And when you do, you’re going to drop her like all the rest and leave her a shattered mess.”

“Yeah, you really have me pegged there, Brad.”

“I know I do.”

“Except for the fact that everything you just said is one hundred percent wrong,” I say and laugh. “I mean, you couldn’t have been more wrong if you tried.”

“Shut up,” he growls. “Stop laughing at me.”

“Stop being a fucking idiot and maybe I’ll consider it.”

He takes a menacing step forward and I consider my options – of which there aren’t many. I don’t think I’ll be able to get to the door before he’s on me, and I refuse to go hide in my bedroom behind a locked door. There is no way in hell I’m going to back down from a piece of garbage like Brad. Which means I’m going to have to fight.

“I’m the one who’s good for her, you know,” Brad continues. “I’m the one who’s devoted. Loyal. I’ll be true to her and will never hurt her. I’ll never dump her just because I’m bored and ready to move on to the next beautiful woman.”

“Is that so?”

He nods. “Yeah, that’s so,” he says. “And what’s more, even though Aurora is your child, I’ll raise her like my own. I’ll love her even though I hate you, and –”

Brad’s words hit me like a brick to the head and I suddenly feel the room spinning around me. Surely, I couldn’t have heard him right. I had to have misunderstood what he said. Right?

“Wait – what did you just say?” I ask.

“I told you that I’d raise Aurora like my own, despite my hatred for you,” he sneers. “Unlike you, I know what it means –”

“Shut up,” I cut him off. “Did you say that Aurora is my child?”

He cocks his head at me, an expression of irritation on his face. “Are you really going to stand there pretending that you didn’t know?”

In addition to being lightheaded, I feel like I was just kicked in the gut and I feel my breath leaving my lungs in a whoosh. I double over, hands on my knees, and try to catch my breath while I try getting my head to stop spinning as hard. I keep an eye on Brad, though, just in case he decides he has an advantage and wants to exploit it.

Instead of moving, he just looks at me, a curious expression on his face.

“You really didn’t know?” he asks.

“How in the fuck would I know? I was in Syria when she got pregnant,” I snap.

“Actually, she got pregnant before you left for Syria,” he says, smiling wide as if he’s enjoying holding this piece of information – information he has that I don’t – over my head.

“How the fuck do you know Aurora is my daughter?” I snap.

“Because I’m smart and I figured it out,” he replies smoothly. “And when I confronted her about it, she didn’t say I was wrong.”

I rock back on my heels as I stand up straight again. I’m still trying to piece it all together and am stunned with shock and disbelief – not disbelief that I have a daughter I never knew about, but that Alexis would intentionally keep it from me all this time. I can’t believe she’d do this.

“You’re wrong. She would have told me,” I tell him.

“She was afraid to tell you, idiot,” Brad snaps back. “She was afraid you’d hire some fancy-ass lawyer to take Aurora away from her.”

“I wouldn’t do that,” I protest.

“She apparently thinks you’re enough of a prick that you would,” he mocks. “And I have to agree with her.”

“Fuck you, Brad,” I say, my voice colder than ice.

Why would Alexis think I’d do something like that? What kind of a monster does she take me for? How can she just assume the worst about me? There are a million questions firing through my mind all at once. Honestly, I don’t even know where to go about getting answers for them – not without talking to Alexis directly.