Crazed (Se7en Deadly SEALs Book 3) by Alana Albertson

glass, took her hand across the table. “Ksenya, I need to ask you something. I noticed your scar—I’m a corpsman, a medic. Are you a mother?”
    She bit her lip and said nothing.
    I wasn’t going to give up that easily. “You can trust me, baby.”
    The color drained from her face and she gulped. “I had baby boy, two years ago,” she said. Her voice was weak and soft, and even her accent seemed to vanish.
    A boy. I was more certain than ever that Julián had to be our son though I didn’t have any proof yet, just circumstantial evidence. Despite her lies up until this point, her body language made me think she believed what she was saying.
    “Where is he?”
    She clutched her wineglass and downed it, her hand shaking. “He is sweet angel and I love him. But he is sick, so he die. And I die inside.”
    Died? He was dead? How the fuck did he die?
    My body heat rose, as if I was suffocating in this suit.
    No, it couldn’t be. If her baby was dead, who the fuck was Julián? He had to be our kid. Or maybe he really was Joaquín’s.
    Was she lying about the baby being dead, knowing she hid him somewhere? Or if Julián was our son, maybe Mia didn’t even know he was alive.
    This nonstop uncertainty, lies and deception made me feel like I was living in a nightmare.
    I wanted to reach across the table and shake Mia until she told me the truth, about everything. Inject her with a truth serum.
    The knowledge that Mia had a baby, possibly my son, alone, and that baby was now gone, sent wrath seeping through my pores. I steadied my breath, as if I was holding it underwater during a mission. “I’m sorry. What happened?”
    Mia looked me dead in my eyes, a stone-cold stare. Like the day she dumped me. Blank, no emotion, vacant.
    “I go to party. My boyfriend, he was out of town. I love him very, very much. He is good to me, good man. I drink many drink, and I think it was no good. I go to lie down, and I do not remember what happen next. When I wake up, a man he is there, my clothes down on my feet. I attack the man but it is too late. My boyfriend, he come home, but I did not tell to him. I find out after I am with baby and because I do not know who is father, I am scared and I leave. Nine months after, I have baby.”
    What in the fucking hell? My eye twitched and my ears pounded. I resisted the urge to grab a plate and hurl it through the bay window of the restaurant. Every word, every moment we had shared flashed before my eyes, like a fucking movie show.
    Who’d fucking attacked her?
    “Who attacked you? Did you file a report? Did you do a rape kit? Did you call the fucking police?”
    “No, I am very scared. And I am ashamed that I drink so much. I only want the man to go away.”
    So this motherfucker was still out there? And she’d never fucking told me?
    Was her baby my son or the attacker’s? I’d slept with Mia when I’d come back from deployment, so it was possible, especially because we hadn’t used a condom. She’d been on the pill before we deployed so I never asked, but how the fuck did I know if she was still taking it while I was gone. Why hadn’t Mia ever told me? She had done nothing wrong; she was a victim. How could she not trust me enough to tell me the truth? Instead, she ghosted me—ran away like a fucking coward.
    I would’ve done anything for her, anything. I would’ve taken care of her through her pregnancy, married her even if the kid wasn’t mine, supported her no matter what the decision. How could she not trust me with the truth?
    I squeezed her hand tightly. “I’m sorry, baby. But I give you my word, as long as you’re with me, I’ll make sure nothing happens to you again.”
    She shrugged her shoulders and stared out at the ocean. Tears welled in her eyes, and I didn’t think her story was another lie. This was real, she had finally told me the truth. And she believed our baby was dead.
    “It does not matter. Nothing matters. I can never bring him back. I have no