by Jane Henry
“You have been through so much.” He shakes his head. “I am sorry you witnessed your father’s execution.”
She holds his gaze. “He deserved it.”
Tomas nods. “He did.” His gaze softens and he looks with her with concern. “Do you need anything?”
She shakes her head. Tomas stands and walks to a sideboard.
“Drink, Stefan? Nicolai?”
“Please,” my father says, and I nod. Tomas pours us both shots of vodka. I never welcomed the feel of the fiery liquid down my throat like I do now. Tomas drinks one shot, then pours a second before he sits behind his desk. Leaning back in his chair, he crosses one ankle over a knee and looks over my shoulder, staring contemplatively above us.
“You’ve put me in a difficult position,” he begins, before he takes another sip from his shot glass. “I’ve inducted you into our brotherhood, Nicolai.”
I nod. It’s a complicated situation, and I will let him speak his mind.
“And you lied to me, Stefan.” My father bows his head and nods.
Marissa weaves her fingers through mine and squeezes.
“But I understand why you did what you did. And the truth is, there is an element of truth in what you did. I inducted Aleks, not Nicolai. And I cannot blame a father for supporting his son. And none of what you did directly impacted my brothers.” He shrugs. “But we have rules here that you’re both aware of.”
I wait, as he seems to be thinking this through. “In the end, I’m short a member of my brotherhood, shot by Myron.” He gives me a sad smile. “And I have one new recruit rather than two.”
He stands, walking with his hands behind his back. “But rules are meant to be broken,” he continues. “And we must evolve with the times.” He turns to face me. “Would you consider dual membership?”
I blink. He’s offering me a place in his brotherhood as well as my father’s? I look to my father. He nods to me, granting his approval.
“I would,” I tell him. “Would you keep me here as Nicolai?”
Tomas leans his massive body on the edge of his desk and crosses his arms on his chest. “You gave up everything for the woman you loved, and a woman of Bratva lineage. You fought your way back from the dead. You defended her against all odds and swallowed your pride. It would be a shame to lose a man of your integrity and fortitude, but I believe a man’s place is by the side of his father. And I believe in that loyalty.”
To my surprise, Marissa speaks up. “And Yvonne is here.”
Tomas raises a brow. “Yvonne?”
“Yakov’s woman,” I tell him. “The girls were together in captivity.”
I think about what Tomas is asking, and weigh my response before I speak. “With my father’s permission, I would like to agree to dual membership, but under one condition.”
Tomas waits patiently. I hold Marissa’s hand gripped firmly in my own. “You no longer demand tributes from the auction from your new members.”
Tomas smiles. “Done. It was outdated anyway.”
My father laughs. He likes Tomas.
“I will help you find new recruits, brother,” I say to Tomas. “Vet them myself.”
Tomas nods. “I would like that.” He gets to his feet. “Go home, Nicolai. Get your woman situated. You have many things to settle. Call me when the time is right.”
He reaches his hand out and shakes my hand. I don’t know how to respond, except to shake his hand in return. It doesn’t seem possible that after all we’ve been through, we can walk free.
We can go home. Home to Rafael and Laina, and the rest of my brotherhood in Atlanta. My throat is tight and I can’t speak, but hope Tomas hears the thanks in my handshake. He has a loyal brother in me until the day I die.
Chapter 23
Marissa
Stefan has a private jet we take home.
Home.
I can’t believe we’re heading back to Atlanta. It doesn’t seem real, that I’m here with Nicolai. That we are on our way back to the Bratva we both call home. I’m stunned, unable to process where we’re going or how we got to where we are. There’s a heaviness in my chest knowing that my father is dead, and what he did, but I can hardly process any of this.
I’m with Nicolai. We are free, and that’s all that matters.
We’re in a car heading to the compound when Nicolai hands me his phone. “There is someone who wants to talk to you.”
I answer the phone. “Hello?”
“Marissa?” It’s Laina. My eyes fill with tears and my throat feels tight.
“Laina?” Nicolai puts his arms around my shoulder and pulls me to him as Laina sobs on the other line. I swipe at my eyes.
“I can’t wait to see you,” I tell her.
“Tell me everything,” she says. I will. I look at Nicolai. Well, almost everything. He is her brother after all.
“I can’t wait to see you,” I whisper. “I’ve missed you so much.”
“I never thought I’d see you again.”
I’m crying freely now, when Nicolai takes the phone from me. Though he doesn’t cry, his eyes are shiny and I see him swallow before he speaks. “Enough making my woman cry,” he says to Laina. “We’ve been through hell and back. All we want is some quiet. Can you arrange that?”
They talk, and Stefan smiles at me. He looks so much like his son, with the same bright blue eyes, though he’s got gray around his temples and beard. He was young when he fell in love with Nicolai’s mother. He’s older than Tomas, but still just under fifty years old. Young to be pakhan, but he has a natural paternal air about him that makes him a natural-born leader.
“We are happy to have you home,” he says. “Though I am sorry about your father.”
I nod my thanks and don’t respond. “I will tell you, sweetheart, that although you are parent-less, it seems my son means to make you his. It would bring me great pleasure to call you daughter.”
“I would like that,” I manage to whisper. “So much so.”
His eyes crinkle around the edges and he squeezes my hand. “You are a very good girl. I wish you hadn’t gone through what you did. But we will take care of you. All of us.”
I know they will. My stern Russian bodyguard has looked out for me since the very first day we met. He fought for me and now he’s taking me home.
Rafael and Laina greet us when we return. Rafael gives me a hug so tight, he lifts me straight up off the ground and into the air, and Laina holds me so long, Nicolai finally has to pull her off. She talks incessantly to Nicolai, demanding all the answers, but I’m tired. So tired. Nicolai finally makes her go, takes both our bags, and brings me to his room at the compound.
It feels so weird being here, but right at the same time.
“Come,” he says, taking me to his room and shutting the door behind us. He locks it. “Tomorrow we debrief the rest of the brotherhood. We will need our rest.”
I’m so tired I collapse on the bed.
“Are we finally home?” I ask.
Fully clothed, he climbs onto the bed beside me. “Finally home, zvezda moya,” he whispers. “And to think, the last time we were here I hadn’t even touched you yet.”
I climb up onto his chest and rest my head in the crook of his neck. He holds me to him.
“You hadn’t, but hell did I fantasize about it.”
“Did you, my love?”
I laugh to myself at the memory of my childish fantasy. Though I’m still so young, I don’t feel it anymore. What I’ve gone through has aged me. It seems like the teens I was friends with, worrying about things like college and handbags and what job they’ll get, are light years away from where I am now. I want nothing more than to be right where I am, tucked into Nicolai and apart from anyone and anything that could tear us apart.
“I just wanted you to notice me,” I say with a laugh.
“Notice you?” he asks. “It was the hardest fucking thing I’ve ever had to do, keeping my hands off you.”
I smile and grab his ha
nd, nestling it against my breast. “You don’t have to keep your hands off me anymore,” I tell him. “Please don’t.”
He chuckles and kisses my hand, then pulls it to his heart. “I won’t,” he says. “But tonight, we need sleep.”
“Yes, sir,” I say without thinking. I freeze, looking up at him. He sobers and tucks me against his chest again.
“I—it’s automatic,” I whisper. “I don’t know if I’m supposed to call you sir, or…” I’m stammering and embarrassed.
He sobers. “Stop.”
I close my mouth and look to him.
“Much has changed between us,” he says. “But this doesn’t have to.”
I think about it and wonder how I feel about it.
“Yes, sir,” I say. My chest expands with joy when he holds me to him and responds.
“You are my very good girl.”
“I can still call you my sir?” I ask.
“Yes,” he says. “We will establish ourselves as a couple here in the brotherhood. But it pleases me very much when you submit to me, Marissa. And taking care of you fills me with more joy than you could ever imagine.”
I like that. No, I love that. I’m his soft place to land after he’s served his brotherhood. And somehow, submitting to his authority empowers me. I wouldn’t want to change that between us.
“But something does need to change between us,” he says.
My heart beats a little faster. “Oh?”
He glides his hand to my belly and rests it there. “If I’ve put a baby in you, I want to be your husband.”
I close my eyes and hold him tighter, overcome with emotion before I can speak. “Is that a proposal, sir?”
“Be my wife, Marissa?” he asks.
The proposal would be almost casual if it didn’t hold the power of changing everything.
“Yes,” I whisper. “Nicolai, I can’t imagine spending my life with anyone but you.” I place my hand atop his on my belly. “And some day, I want those children with you. We’ve come so far. We will find our way.”
He holds me to him, his voice a vehement whisper I feel in my soul. “I love you.”
“I love you,” I whisper. “And I always will.”
We fall asleep like that, exhausted but sated, in the certain knowledge that our enemies are no longer in pursuit, we have the power of two loyal brotherhoods at our backs, and tomorrow holds a world of possibilities.
Epilogue
Six months later
I pull up to the compound at dusk, fading sunlight filtering through trees and hitting the dash, momentarily blinding me. Laina sits beside me in the passenger seat, slurping the last of her lemonade through a straw. To anyone who saw us, we’d look like just regular girls back from a shopping spree, plastic bags stuffed into the back of the car witness to our exploits. They maybe wouldn’t notice the men who followed us everywhere we went, or the sleek black car that pulls in behind us now. When I was younger—hell, it wasn’t that long ago—I felt the protection was oppressive. I hated it, and would try to hide from Nicolai. I wanted my freedom so badly I would cry at night, wondering how anyone could be happy under the constant watchful eye of the Bratva. Now, it brings a sort of comfort I can’t deny. I suppose having lived through what I have will sober a girl.
The only reason Nicolai is behind me and not driving this car is because he’s training a group of new recruits, and he hasn’t been more than a car’s distance away from me the entire night.
“He loves you,” Laina says.
I smile to myself.
“He does. And I love him.”
She reaches for my hand and squeezes. “Someday, will you tell me everything, Marissa?”
I swallow hard. “Maybe someday.”
I’m not ready to talk about it. I don’t like to even think about it. I still dream that I’m held captive, and when I wake I’m covered in a cold sweat. He holds me, every time, tucked to his chest with his arms wrapped around me. Sometimes he hushes me, sometimes he gently rocks me. Sometimes he just tucks the blanket back around me, but what he says is always the same. “You’re safe, and I love you.”
You’re safe, and I love you.
Maybe those are the only two things anyone ever needs to hear. To feel. To know.
Knowing I’m safe and he loves me brings him as much comfort as it does me.
“It might help you to talk about it,” she says.
I shrug. “It might. Some people do better talking about things and others do better moving on.” I like to pretend that what I went through was a terrible dream. I like waking to my new reality. I place my hand on my swelling abdomen and smile to myself. I feel as if I’ve aged a decade in the past year, and I am more than ready for this new chapter in my life. Our new chapter.
Then I smile and give her a teasing look.
“It’s funny how much we have in common, you know.”
“Isn’t it?” she muses.
“We both had shitty fathers who deserved their demise,” I say, unable to mask the bitter note in my tone. Then I smile. “And we both ended up with fiercely protective cavemen.”
“Ah, you’ll tame your caveman over time,” she says sagely, reaching to the back seat to grab her bags.
“Really,” I say, giving her a sly grin. I don’t believe it. Rafael looks at Laina the same way Nicolai looks to me, as if she’s his world, and he’d do anything to keep it that way. I stifle a snort of laughter when Rafe knocks on her window and she jumps. She rolls it down and gives him a winsome smile.
“Hey.”
“Hey,” he says, but his voice is gruff and his arms are crossed on his chest. “Thought you’d be home an hour ago.”
“Well, we took a little detour,” she begins.
“Is that right?” he asks, cocking his head to the side. “And how many of those bags are yours, baby?” He nods to the back of the car.
“Um. Most of them?” she says.
“I called you three times,” he says. “Why didn’t you answer?”
“Oh, um, I had my phone on silent?” she says.
He literally reaches in the window, taps the lock, opens the door and unbuckles her, but I don’t miss the teasing glint in his eye.
I’m still giggling as he hauls her out of the car and she shoots me a parting grin.
Tamed her caveman my ass.
I squeal when a deep voice comes to my left.
“You do know stop signs are meant for you to actually stop at, don’t you?”
Nicolai stands on my side of the door with his arms across his chest.
“I stopped!” I protest, gathering up my bags. “A soft stop, but I stopped. And anyway, I thought you were following to protect me, not to police my driving.”
“You thought wrong,” he says. “And there’s no such thing as a soft stop.”
I give him a pout before I exit the car. I go to get the bags from the back and he gently pushes me out of the way and takes all of them.
“I can hold some of those,” I protest, even though he doesn’t listen to a thing I say and rolls his eyes at me.
“You carry nothing, little girl,” he says, giving my swollen abdomen a pointed look.
“Nicolai,” I say, rolling my eyes at him. “Pregnant women can carry things. They can lift heavy things. They can run marathons!”
“Not my pregnant woman,” he says.
“Damn right,” Rafael calls from the front porch to the compound. “You’re lucky he lets you out of his sight.”
“He doesn’t!” I retort.
Nicolai leans in, his eyes softening, as he brushes his lips across my forehead. “And why would I take my eyes off the prettiest woman I’ve ever seen? My wife?”
“Why thank you, husband.” We’re ridiculous sometimes, but I don’t care. We fought hard for what we have, and there’s no shame in unabashedly loving someone.
I waddle beside him, secretly pleased he’s so overprotective. I know why he treats me the way he does. He told me.
&
nbsp; “I lost you once and will never lose you again.”
And I have to give him that. Just like I don’t ask questions when he does a job for his father, or he and Rafael leave together after receiving a message. I know that he seeks revenge for what happened to me, and that he will not rest until he’s duly punished those who hurt me. I don’t pry because the silent understanding between us holds fast. He won’t lose me again, and he won’t give anyone a chance to repeat their actions.
“Your speed got a little out of hand on the highway,” he says.
“Oh yeah?” I tease. “I didn’t notice.”
“I did,” he says, giving me a stern look that makes my heart beat a little faster.
He puts the bags down and gathers me in his arms. “I notice everything about you,” he says, before he leans down and presses his lips to mine. “What you like and what you don’t. What makes you happy and what excites you. What you fear, what you hope, what you dream about.” He kisses me until my breathing’s labored and my knees grow weak, but my belly prevents us from getting too close.
“There’s a roadblock,” I mutter when I pull away. “I can’t get as close to you as I’d like.”
He gives me a teasing look and quirks an eyebrow at me. “I have some ideas about how we could get a little closer.”
“Oh, do you?” I ask. I turn away casually, very aware of what that predatory look means. I pretend I’m just sauntering, but as soon as I’ve turned fully away, I bolt.
“Marissa,” he warns, but I dodge furniture like a pro, leaving him behind. I make it to our bedroom with him in hot pursuit, and squeal like a little girl when he catches me and lifts me straight up in the air.
“I thought pregnant women could run marathons?” he teases.
I’m panting from the exertion, flailing in his grasp. “Not this pregnant woman,” I pant.
I’m on my back on the bed and he’s got me pinned down beneath him. The muscles on his shoulders flex and bulge as he braces himself over me. Those blue eyes of his make my belly warm and I stop squirming.
“I love you, Nicolai.”
“And I love you.” His voice is deep and husky, sending a thrill of pleasure down my spine.
I know he wrestles demons and always will. That he’s devoted loyalty to his brotherhood. That he breaks the law and lives by a code of conduct the entire Bratva swears allegiance to.
