A/N: Reading the reviews from the last chapter, I've come to the conculsion that most of you did NOT expect that little twist. I'm glad! :D Anyways, I hope you all enjoy this chapter and it helps clear up some of your confusion!

Disclaimer: Richelle Mead owns Vampire Academy.

"Ivan may still be alive."

The words echoed in my head over and over again. My skull pounded. Wincing, I rubbed my temples, trying to magically make the migraine disappear. "What did you say?" I shook my head violently. "That's just not possible. That's just not possible!"

"Rose…" Dimitri's eyes grew sad. His expression was grim as he came towards me with open arms.

I held up my hand, stopping him from coming any closer. "Please. Just stay away. I need a second to think." After a few moments, I was able to catch my breath and get over the initial shock. I crossed my arms and met his eyes. "What in the world would ever make you think our son is alive?"

"I can explain." he said.

"Please do." Venom dripped from my words, but there was no way I was going to camouflage my bitterness. My fiancé was out of his mind. That was the only explanation I could summon up. He was a lunatic. Maybe he'd developed a mental illness while we'd been apart for a year.

When he first started talking, it was no surprise that I was the biggest skeptic. Unable to control myself, I just stared at him with the same amount of trust and faith you would have with a mental patient—absolutely none at all. But as more words came out of his mouth; my doubt chipped away piece by piece. There was nothing but honesty and pain in his eyes, and him being the man I trusted most in this world, I was positive he was speaking the truth.

But that didn't make the situation any easier to swallow and digest.

Dimitri explained that he'd received a FedEx envelope on his desk at work a little over a week ago. The date on the outside of the envelope was recent, but the date on the letter inside was just over a year old, around the exact time I'd been kidnapped by Tasha and Robert.

Apparently, keeping the secret from me had been eating him alive, because he hadn't been able to hold it within him any longer. For which I was extremely grateful for.

"The handwriting is Tasha's. I recognize it." Dimitri said, pulling the letter out of his back pocket.

"What does it say?" I asked, grabbing my tight throat and massaging it. The whole room seemed smaller, and it was getting harder and harder for me to pull any air into my lungs.

"It's simple, really." he said. "It lists Tasha's emergency cell number—"

I laughed acrimoniously. "So that's what made you think Ivan is still alive? This is all crap. For the smallest of seconds, my hopes were high, even though I know this is impossible. Can you believe that, Dimitri? You actually had me hopeful—"

"Take care of him for me." he read straight from the letter, and my heart dropped into my stomach.

"Tasha could be talking about anyone." I lied, trying to be realistic about our situation. But my gut instinct was screaming at me to stop being an idiot and wake up. "And by 'him', she could mean Robert." My head was spinning, and I briefly closed my eyes, having a hard time seeing straight from the otherworldly stabbing pains in my skull.

Dark brows rose. "Robert was Tasha's last concern. I know very well how her mind works. Her soul purpose was getting revenge on you."

The reason? For taking away her life and her one true love: Dimitri. "Why would she just put her number, then? Not an address or something like that?" I asked, shooting every ounce of uncertainty out there. Unfortunately, I was running out of bullets.

This just wasn't possible.

Was it?

"Just in case of emergencies," he said. "Or if something went wrong with..."

I cringed. If something had gone wrong when they kidnapped me. Psychopaths had to have back up plans too.

"Who sent this letter?"

Dimitri pursed his lips and stayed silent for the longest time.

"So help me God, I will cut off your balls and shove them so far down your throat if you don't start talking—"

"Tasha's mother. She's a patient at North Dakota's mental institution."

"Daughter like mother," I muttered.

"Actually, Marie was relatively normal before Tasha's death caused her to develop a severe mental illness. She was head of neonatal nurses at St. Vladimir's hospital for nearly thirty years."

Neonatal nurse. Tasha's mother was a damn neonatal nurse. "B-b-b but. No. It wouldn't work." My blood turned to ice, and I developed a vicious anger towards a woman I'd never met. "I was only six and a half months pregnant. Ivan would have never survived. He would have been far too premature."

"I know this may sound crazy—all of this is crazy—but, Marie specialized in the ICU. They called her a miracle savior. She was truly unbelievable in her work."

"Oh, my God," The pieces started to come together in my head. "Do you think Tasha gave Ivan over to her mother?"

"If this letter is real, then that would be my bet."

"Wait," I slammed the brakes on my hopes and the horrors of the situation. "There may be no body in his grave, but Ivan died in my womb at the hospital. There was no way Tasha could have taken our child unless…"

My head came up and I stared at Dimitri with a blazing anger in my chest. This all had to be a bad dream. God, please let this be a nightmare. Maybe if I was lucky, I'd wake up and forget all about it…

But I knew that wasn't the case here.

The flash in Dimitri's eyes told me he knew exactly what I'd just realized.

"You lied to me!" On impulse, I stalked up and slapped him hard. Raising my other hand, I hit his opposite check. He took the blows without trying to stop me or even flinching, because he knew he damn well deserved the pain.

"Okay," I inhaled shakily, trying to throw water over my burning rage. It didn't help much. Betrayal hurt the worst. Currently, I was filled to maximum with it. "I don't hate you, but my God, I want to kill you in the slowest, agonizing way."

"I understand." Dimitri dropped his head in shame.

"Do you?" I scoffed. "Do you really understand what I'm going through, Dimitri? Because I don't think you do. I just found out that my son that I've deemed dead for over a year might still be alive, and if he is, he's in the hands of my fiancé's psycho ass ex's mothers, who by the way, is completely insane herself. And to top it all off, I just found out that my future husband, the man I love and trust most on this planet, has been lying to me about how our unborn child met his destiny."

"I did it to protect you." My fiancé lifted his head and stared at me with hard eyes.

"I want the truth!"

"You couldn't have handled it."

This time when I went to slap him, he caught my wrist. He did the same with the other when I took a swing.

"Opposing to your believing me to be so weak, I could have handled it. You should have told me earlier! Not have the fucking doctor lie to me about Ivan dieing in my womb from the stress of my ordeal. Do you know that's the reason I blamed myself for his death? I thought he died inside of me!" I growled. "But now I'm just finding out that he was cut out of me."

"Be angry with me all you want, but I don't regret what I did. I know for a fact that if you'd found out what Tasha actually did to you, you wouldn't have come back from it. One person can only take so much before they go on overload. I could barely stand what had happened to Ivan myself."

My legs gave out and I fell down to the sofa. Every part of my body was shaking. It was like some horror movie, but real. I hadn't just been kidnapped, drugged, beaten, tortured…I'd been mutilated.

Thinking back to my nightmares, I realized that they held some meaning to them. Sure, I'd had vicious visions of Tasha killing my son and had been drifting in and out of unconsciousness the entire time, but I also dreamt of him being alive in her arms. Intuitively, I knew these were clips from my subconscious memory.

"Tasha's plans were most likely to..." Dimitri trailed off.

"For her and Robert to kill me off." Me being pregnant and all merely gave Tasha a bonus check. Robert had nothing to do with Ivan, he'd only wanted me dead so he could avenge his brother Victor's death.

My fiancé's face turned to stone. "Yes, and had I not dealt with them myself, Tasha would have checked in with her mother…and if Ivan survived—which is extremely unlikely considering how premature and undeveloped he was—he would have been brought to full health and have been released out of the ICU and into Maries custody."

"Marie would have done all of this for Tasha? No questions asked?"

"Marie loved her daughter very much. More than anything. So that should answer all of your doubts."

I nodded and rubbed my temples, suddenly feeling nauseous. "And after Marie took Ivan out of the hospital and handed him over to Tasha…"

The sentence didn't need to be finished to be understood. I shuddered at the possibilities. What would she have done with my son? Torture and kill him like she'd plan to do with me? Or worse, take him home and play mommy to him? Tell people Ivan was her and Dimitri's son? In her sick and twisted mind, she probably would have believed her own lie.

My fiancé came over and crouched before me. Slowly and gently he peeled my hands away from my head, set them in my lap, and stared into my eyes. "I'm not going to ask if you're okay, because I know that you're not. The only thing I do ask is that you do not get your hopes up. Because if you do and they get crushed, your whole world is going to come crashing down. And unlike the last time, you won't be able to barely escape it."

Gazing at those blazing brown eyes for the longest time, I nodded and felt my heart break a little. He was right. This could all be for nothing. There was a high possibly that Ivan was long gone. But no matter what, I wasn't going to stop until I knew for sure.

Mentally and physically exhausted, I laid my head on his shoulder and breathed in his heavenly scent. "I don't hate you."

There was a smile to his voice when he said, "I know." Dimitri lovingly ran his fingers through my hair and simply just held me when I needed the comfort most.

"But I don't regret slapping you."

"I know."

"And if I could turn back time, I wouldn't change a thing. I'd still hit you. Because you deserved it."

"I know, Roza. I so know."

We were silent for the longest time, when an idea suddenly popped into my head. "Let's go to Marie!"

My fiancé pulled back and just stared at me.

"Come on, Dimitri. Even if Ivan is dead and long gone, I want—no, need answers. Please. I can't live the rest of my life wondering."

"She's in a mental asylum," He said it like it held the answer to everything in the world.

"Do you know the location?"

"Yes." he said tightly.

"Well, put on your crazy hat and let's go!"

"It's not as easy as you think it is," Dimitri's arms snapped out and encircled my waist when I grabbed the car keys and ran for the door. "First of all, don't forget about Rosie. She's still here. And second, the asylum is in North Dakota. Besides, there's no guarantee that they'll let us in because we're not family-"

"Say that you're her widow son-in-law and you need to get past to see her to express your deepest regrets for your beloved passed wife. It'll work."

He arched a brow. "That doesn't explain you."

"We'll cross that bridge when we come to it," I said.

Dimitri stood there, body rigid. And although his eyes were guarded, I could tell he was starting to break. Now it was just time for me to bring out the sledge hammer and crush all of those inhibitions and barriers keeping me from getting what I wanted.

Female hysteria always worked. "Please, Dimitriiiiiiii!" I cried dramatically. "I just have to know if there's still a chance for Ivan—"

"Fine. By the way, you're a terrible actress." he released me. "And you woke up our niece."

Forty-five minutes later, after Dimitri had packed up everything we'd possibly need for our road trip and bundled me up, we were all but running to Lissa and Christian's apartment.

Dimitri held Rosie in his arms. In spite of the fact that he was doing his absolute best of cradling her safely to his body, she still bounced up and down like crazy with each of his long strides. She giggled and made a loud excited scream. "Horsey! Fun! Horsey! Fun!" she clapped her hands together.

We arrived at their place and I snatched the infant out of his arms and banged on the door. Waiting impatiently for them to answer, I covered Rosie's ears when I heard from inside the house, a very deafening pleasure filled cry from my best friend and a groan from her husband.

Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang! "Open up!"

The door flew open, and thank the lord, Rosie's face was buried in my jacket and hair.

Christian stood there naked, hands cupped over his package, sweat covering his pale skin, jet-black hair all messy. "What the hell is going on? Is something wrong? It's three o' clock in the morning!"

I screamed in horror. "Sorry. Something came up. Can no longer baby-sit." Running in the apartment, I set Rosie down on the plush carpet and instructed her to keep her eyes shut until her parents told her otherwise—

"My God, Lissa, you're naked and…are those handcuffs? Man, you two are kinky." I ran outside. "Hope you guys had a wonderful time at the anniversary dinner! Love you!"

Dimitri smiled and grabbed my hand. Together, we booked it back to the black SUV.

For better or for worse, we set off on the adventure of a lifetime.

Dimitri pulled up to the gates and pressed his foot on the brake when four guards came up to each side of the windows and blinded us with their flashlights.

My fiancé rolled down the window. "Good evening, sir."

"Visiting hours don't start until twelve." The man with the bald head and fuzzy white beard said gruffly. "You have to leave. Now. People like you don't belong around here."

Man, he was creepy. Matter of fact, this whole place gave me the jeebies.

"You'll have to make an exception for me. I'm here to see patient Marie Ozera." Dimitri flashed some kind of badge, which made all four guards immediately straighten up, lose their attitudes, and get identical looks of respect mingled with fear in their eyes.

"Of course, sir." Mr. Creepy said. "Peter! Open these gates right now!" he looked back inside the SUV. "Sorry for any inconvenience. Please, go right in. Ask for Lola at the front. She'll help you with whatever you need."

"Thank you." Dimitri offered a tight smile. "You all take it easy now."

As he drove up the long gravel road and past multiple barbwire fences, I turned to him with a stunned look. "What was all that about? Those guards all but shit their pants when they saw your badge."

"I have connections." was all he said.

Once Dimitri had parked the vehicle and gave me a long warning about not getting my hopes high and telling me this mission was most likely useless because Marie was not known to be a chatterbox and will probably not talk at all, he gave me a long, lingering kiss and exited the car.

"Stay put." he said, locking the doors, then disappearing into the ancient, gloomy building.

All of the hairs on the back of my neck stood up. It felt like venomous scorpions and snakes were crawling all over my skin. This whole mental asylum held the most sinister, active energy. There were a lot of disturbed souls locked up for life inside of there, and for a split second, I felt pity for Tasha's mother. No one should have to spend their life alone and unloved, let alone in a place like that.

That feeling quickly passed.

Three hours later—FINALLY!—Dimitri walked out of the building and jogged over to the SUV.

"What happened?" I asked as he slid inside the vehicle, then locked the doors and cranked up the heater. "Tell me everything!"

My fiancé handed me a piece of paper with an address hastily scribbled on it. I recognized the elegant handwriting as his.

"I talked with Marie," he said in a voice that chilled me to the bone. "She screamed and scratched and bit me. She proved to be very useless. If you're wondering what that is on the paper, the head of the asylum gave it to me. He wasn't supposed to, but I didn't really give him an option." Dimitri smiled slyly, and I wouldn't be surprised if the man he was talking about was beaten and bruised in his office right now.

My fiancé continued on, "He went through Marie's files at my request. Dug up some information—"

"Get to the point," I waved my hands impatiently.

"Turns out CPS came for a child at Marie's house a few weeks before she was diagnosed with a severe psychological illness. In her condition, she wasn't fit to be a guardian. The child, listed as a boy by the name of Conner, was neglected. Too skinny. Not fed. She never changed his diapers and he got really nasty rashes—" Dimitri's voice cracked with intense emotion. Regaining composure, he pointed to the note in my hand. "That address is an orphanage back in Montana. Conner lives there."

"So he hasn't been adopted yet?"

Dimitri shook his head, rubbing his ice-cold hands together. "No."

My throat tightened, and I spoke the words that burned my throat and stung my eyes, "Conner is...Ivan. Isn't he?"

"Yes, Conner is our son."