by Nicole Fox
My eyes go wide. “What?”
He brings my hand to his mouth and kisses it. “You told me you love me.”
His smile is sexy and teasing, and I can’t resist it anymore. I lean forward and press a kiss to his soft lips. Just a few hours ago, I didn’t know if I’d ever get a chance to do it again. When I pull away, he is still smirking up at me, teasing me.
“Hey, I heard something, too,” I say, one eyebrow arched. “You said you love me, too.”
“I was bleeding out and seconds from death,” he says, waving a dismissive hand. I pull my hand away and lightly slap his chest. He laughs and then winces and clutches his side. Once he is settled back in bed again, he reclaims my hand. “Though, that doesn’t make what I said untrue.” His green eyes flare to life, warming my skin wherever they land. “I do love you.”
This time, I can’t hold back the tears. They come and come, and I kiss him over and over again. We kiss and talk about everything. I ask why he didn’t just tell me he didn’t plant the bomb that killed Samuel Notarianni, and he tells me he didn’t think I’d believe him. Which, truly, I probably wouldn’t have.
“Plus,” he says, stroking his thumb across the delicate bones of my wrist. “You terrified me, Eve. The way I felt about you was too big and too much, and I thought it would be easier if you hated me. So, letting you think the worst of me seemed like the best idea. I thought it would stop you from becoming too attached.”
I lay my hand on his cheek and kiss him. “Your plan failed.”
“I guess so,” he says, laughing softly.
I can tell he is getting tired, and I want to let him sleep, but I also want to keep talking with him forever.
“And I guess you know I’m pregnant,” I whisper.
Luka presses a palm to my stomach and gives me a sleepy smile. “Yeah, I heard.”
“How do you feel about that?” It is almost mean to be asking him these questions when he is so close to sleep, but I can’t help myself.
“I feel like,” he says, his voice going quiet as his eyes grow heavy, “we should get married.”
I tip my head back and laugh. Really laugh for the first time in days. “You really are tired. We are already married.”
“I know.” He grabs my left hand and tugs on my ring finger. “But I want to marry you again. For real.”
“Are you serious?”
His eyes flutter closed, his long, dark eyelashes making him look more beautiful than any man has a right to, and he nods, a big smile spread across his face. “Will you?”
“Marry you?” I ask, leaning forward to rest my chin on his chest.
He nods again, and I lay my cheek against his rib cage, listening to the thrum of his heart.
“Of course, I will, Luka Volkov.” I twine my fingers through his and close my eyes. “Of course, I’ll marry you.”
29
Luka
Despite being days away from giving birth, Eve insisted on making dinner. I stood nervously in the corner of the kitchen, jumping forward every time she so much as banged two pots together.
“Would you stop being such a mother hen?” she finally said, shooing me out of the kitchen.
I listened intently from the dining room while she finished cooking, but refused to let her carry our plates into the dining room. She thinks I worry about her too much, but I don’t think she lets me worry about her nearly enough. If she let me, I’d carry her from room to room. I’d do anything to make sure she and our baby girl stay safe and healthy.
That desire is why we moved out of the Volkov mansion. It was nice, but auspicious. Now that my father has stepped down, and I’m the boss of the Volkov family, I don’t want to give our enemies any reason to hate me more. And no one likes seeing their rival living in a mansion. So, we have a modest two-story house with a metal fence and top of the line security system.
Though, when it comes to enemies, we are thankfully lacking these days. After I shot and killed Eve’s father, the Furinos hung around for a few more months before disbanding. None of them were particularly loyal to Benedetto, anyway, and once the money stopped flowing, they got out. Same with the Irish. I never returned the guns I stole, and the financial hit pretty much wiped them out. They have all either left town or are lying low, and I’ve made it more than apparent that if any of them so much as look in the direction of my family, I’ll kill them on sight.
“How big do you think I am?” Eve asks, pointing to the giant serving of lasagna I scooped out for her.
“Too much?”
She laughs. “Actually, I think I’d just like to eat straight from the pan, please.”
I scoop half of the lasagna from her plate back into the casserole dish. “That can be arranged.”
The meal is incredible, and I moan through most of it, eyes closed.
“Are you enjoying it?” she teases. “I can’t tell.”
“Oh, God. It is amazing. I don’t think I ever actually ate food before you came along. Nothing used to ever taste this good.”
She smiles, pleased, but tries to hide it. “That’s because you had an untrained cook who overcooked pasta. I’m just the first person you let into your kitchen who knew what they were doing.”
“Fitting that this is our first meal in the new house,” I say, remembering our first meal in the mansion together.
She pushes her long brown hair over her shoulder and shakes her head. “That feels like it was a thousand years ago.”
“A lot has happened since then,” I say, reaching across the table to grab her hand. She smiles at her, her caramel eyes melting into mine as I circling my thumb around her knuckles.
My heart flutters in my chest, and I use my other hand to push my plate away. “Suddenly, I’m not very hungry.”
She laughs and throws her head back, knowing exactly what I’m thinking. “I’m nine months pregnant, Luka.”
I stand up and wag my eyebrows, walking around the table towards her. “And looking ravishing, might I add?”
She groans, but can’t seem to wipe the smile from her face. “I’m a beached whale.”
“A beautiful, alluring beached whale,” I say, hooking one arm under her knees and the other around her back. Even with the thirty extra pounds of baby weight, she is a breeze to lift.
She lets her eyes flutter closed and places a hand to her heart. “How is a girl supposed to resist that kind of sweet talk?”
I laugh and kiss her nose. “She isn’t.”
I carry her to our bedroom and lay her on the bed. It was the first room we unpacked, and now I’m glad.
Eve is self-conscious, wanting me to turn down the lights and keep her shirt on, but I peel her clothes off slowly, kissing every inch of her skin as I go. And her nervousness fully fades away when I work my way up her thighs and towards her center. Her fingers dig into my hair, pulling me closer as I swirl my tongue across her and suck her into my mouth.
While she is still trembling from her orgasm, I roll her onto her side, curl up behind her, and press into her. The sex has become gentler as her pregnancy has progressed. It is intimate and slow, and I don’t mind.
I tuck her hair behind her ear and kiss her neck as she moans with each slow stroke. When I feel warmth building inside of me, I wrap a hand around her front and circle my thumb over her. The double sensation makes her gasp and moan, and the sexy sound of her flustered and breathless sends me over the edge. We come together, tangled in each other’s arms, and fall asleep not long after.
I wake up to a sharp finger in my chest.
“Ouch.” I grab Eve’s hand and curl it within mine. “Stop.”
“I’m in labor.”
The words take a second to sink in. “What?”
“In labor,” she repeats slowly, jabbing me with the other finger. “I’ve been up with contractions for an hour, and my water just broke.”
This time, the words make sense. I sit bolt upright. The room is still dark, and Eve is sitting on the edge of the bed.
/> “Your water just broke?”
She nods.
“Okay.” I slide out of bed, change into jeans and a t-shirt, and run into the closet to grab the hospital bag we’ve had packed for weeks. “We are going to talk later about how you’ve been awake for an hour with contractions without telling me.”
She sighs. “I didn’t want you to worry.”
I grab her hand and help her stand up, and then keep an arm tightly around her waist as we walk to the car. “Too late. I’m worried.”
We drive to the hospital as quickly and safely as possible, and I run inside and get her a wheelchair. It is the middle of the night, but the hospital is blazing white light and loud voices and beeping machinery. They run on an entirely different time schedule, so even if I wasn’t delirious enough from being woken up in the middle of the night, I have no idea what time it is by the time we get into our room.
The nurses assure us things will progress slowly since this is Eve’s first baby, but her pain keeps ramping up and the contractions are non-stop. The next time a nurse comes in to check on her, her face blanches.
“You’re at an 8.5.”
“What does that mean?” I ask, looking from Eve to the nurse and back again.
“I’m going to call the anesthesiologist.” The nurse runs from the room and Eve reaches out and grabs my hand, squeezing so hard I’m afraid I’ll lose circulation in my fingers.
“What does that mean?” I ask again.
“It means the baby is almost here,” she says, gritting her teeth and squeezing my hand even harder through the next contraction. I might actually need a finger splint.
“Okay. Okay,” I say, trying to keep myself calm. I’m hopped up on crappy waiting room coffee and adrenaline, and I’m terrified. So terrified. “Do I have time to go to the bathroom?”
Eve’s eyes widen, and she looks at me like she might hit me over the head with her fist, but then she releases my hand and points to the door. “Go. Now. Hurry.”
I’m too nervous to pee, and I end up pacing around the bathroom for a few minutes, taking deep, calming breaths. I knew Eve was pregnant. Obviously. But I had spent very little time thinking about what that would actually mean for my life. But now, it is here. We are minutes away from having a baby, and I’m freaking out. Losing my mind, actually.
The door opens and a man with bags under his eyes walks in, takes one look at me, and raises an eyebrow. “New dad?”
“Soon,” I say.
He laughs. “Sleep while you can. It will never happen again. My wife is in there having our third.”
“Third?” I stare at him like he is a circus freak.
“Yeah, we’re crazy.” He shrugs and walks over to the urinal. “But it’s fun. The fact that you’re nervous means you’ll be fine. Only bad parents aren’t nervous about being parents.”
I thank him and leave as he starts to pee. When I step into the hallway, there is a woman and a baby being wheeled into a recovery room. The baby is still kind of purple from the months it spent in the womb, and the dad is following behind the nurse, peering over her shoulder to see the baby. He looks so happy.
I’m not cut out for this. The feeling washes over me all at once. I can’t be a dad. It has taken me this long to become a halfway decent husband, and kids are far less forgiving. What if I screw her up? What if I mess everything up and Eve leaves me and takes our daughter with her, and I die old and bitter and alone?
The doors at the end of the hall open, and I am half-tempted to sprint towards them and leave the hospital altogether. Really, I might be doing Eve a favor. But then, I hear her scream.
Okay, not scream. But it is a loud groan, and I know it is Eve because it is followed by my name.
“Luka! Where are you? Get in here! Where did he go?”
The nurses are trying to calm her down when I walk in the room. As soon as she sees me, she starts to cry, shaking her head.
“I can’t do this, Luka. I’m progressing too quickly, and they can’t give me an epidural. I’m going to be a bad mom. I told you I was ready for this, but I’m not. I’m not at all and—”
I wrap a hand around the back of her neck, tip her head back, and press my lips to hers, quieting her. She is tense for another second before she goes soft and fluid in my arms. When I pull away, her eyes are glassy.
“You are going to be amazing,” I say, pressing another kiss to her forehead. “The fact that you’re nervous means you’ll be fine. Only bad parents aren’t nervous about being parents.”
I’m not sure if she believes me, but she nods and squeezes my hand, and within the hour, she delivers a beautiful baby girl into the world. The nurses clean her off, wrap her up, and bring her back to Eve, placing her delicately in her arms.
I’ve never seen anything so precious.
“She is so sweet,” Eve says for the hundredth time, running a finger down the little girl’s nose. “The sweetest thing I’ve ever seen.”
“Hey, Eve?” I tease, elbowing her in the arm. “Is our daughter sweet?”
She laughs. “I’m sorry. I just can’t think of anything else. She is so sweet.”
“Maybe that’s what we should call her,” I say, squeezing her tiny socked foot.
“What, Sweet?” Eve asks, nose wrinkled. “That’s terrible.”
I shake my head. “Milaya. Russian for ‘sweet’.”
“I knew that,” she says, rolling her eyes, and then twisting her lips to one side in thought. “Milaya,” she repeats, moving her lips slowly around the name. She says it a few more times and then smiles. When she looks up at me, her eyes are glittering with tears. “I love it.”
“Me too.”
Eve presses a kiss to Milaya’s tiny nose and smiles. “My sweet Milaya.”
I kiss Milaya’s mitten-covered hand and then kiss Eve’s temple. I smooth down her sweaty hair with my hand and brush the flyaways behind her ears. “My sweet wife.”
She grabs my hand, and we stay there for a long time, doing our best to soak in the sweetness of our new baby girl, and our wonderful life.
30
Luka
Eight months later
The new kid is green. As green as any recruit I’ve ever seen.
But he has heart.
“Hold up your trigger hand.” I raise my right in example and the recruit lifts his, as well. His fingers tremble, but I do him the courtesy of not pointing it out.
I step forward and press the blade of my knife to his palm. The restaurant around us is silent. Every person in the room is there for the initiation ritual, and they understand the commitment the recruit is making.
Now, I have to make sure he does, too.
“This knife has sliced the palm of every member of the Volkov family,” I say to the room. Then, I turn to the recruit. Sweat has gathered on his forehead, and his eyes are wide. “When this knife slices your palm, the spilling of your blood will signify your devotion to the Volkov family. It will signify your oath to serve your fellow family members with your own life should it come to that. Do you understand?”
His throat bobs as he swallows and nods.
I hesitate for only a moment, and then I drag the blade across his palm.
He hisses as blood drips from the cut. When I pull the knife away, he keeps his hand held aloft, allowing everyone to see. After a few beats, the room erupts in raucous cheers.
Men come from every direction, practically tackling the young kid. Someone rubs their knuckles in his hair and several people shout for shots at the same time.
I laugh and back away from the melee.
Eve is standing at a table behind me, and she holds out a glass of scotch as I approach.
It has been eight months since she gave birth, and she looks the exact same as she did the day I met her. Chestnut brown hair tumbles in big waves over her shoulders, and she still looks killer in a pair of skin-tight high-waisted jeans. Her stilettos bring her closer to my height, and I wrap an arm around her lower back and pull h
er against me.
“You looked like a cult leader out there,” she whispers, pressing her pink lips together into a tight smile. No matter how much time it has been, her smile is something I’m still not quite used to. It sends my heart into palpitations.
“A sexy cult leader?” I ask, rocking my hips against hers.
She stretches up onto her toes, and I think she is going to kiss me, but then her lips slide over my cheek to my ear. Her breath is warm against my skin, sending goosebumps down my neck. “I’d join.”
I pull away and press my forehead to hers. “Where is Milaya?”
She opens her mouth to answer, but before she can, someone else does. “Being fawned over by a group of the wives.”
I look up and see Kostya standing on the other side of the table, watching us.
Eve stiffens in my arms, and I smooth a comforting hand down her back. I tip my head towards the kitchen. “I’m going to go have a smoke.”
I grab her hand and for a second, I think she might resist, but then she follows after me, checking over her shoulder to be certain Milaya is being well cared for.
Everyone loves our daughter as much as we do. She looks so much like her mother with curly chestnut hair and bright pink lips. She is a chubby-cheeked doll, and when we are all gathered together, she is constantly being cuddled by someone.
As soon as I step into the kitchen, Eve pulls her hand from mine, and by the time I get to the alley behind the restaurant, she has her arms crossed over her chest. I light a cigarette and lean against the wall.
“Beautiful night.” Spring is giving way to summer, and I can feel the humidity in the air. But for now, there is still a cool breeze and the smell of fresh flowers.
“I can’t do it anymore, Luka.”
Eve is standing with her arms crossed over her chest, pushing her breasts together and making it hard to focus, but I do. Because the look in her eyes lets me know she is serious.
“Can’t do what?” I ask, settling my cigarette between my fingers and shoving the lighter back in my pocket.
