I watch them surround her, my wife at the center of this warmth she’s created, this family she’s built with nothing but her generous heart and stubborn determination to find light where I only saw darkness.
And then I hear a low, familiar voice behind me.
“Move.”
Before I can turn, Marco, a wall of good-natured bulk, is physically shifted to the side like a piece of furniture. Not hurt, just…relocated.Efficiently.
By Vaska.
Vaska steps into the space Marco occupied, all lean muscle and quiet danger, black shirt rolled at the sleeves, rings glinting under the lights. His expression is unreadable, until his eyes land on Vasilisa.
And then they soften.
No.
Before I can stop him, those lethal hands scoop her straight off the ground.
Vasilisa laughs, delighted. “Vaska!”
He lifts her effortlessly, like she’s still that six-year-old he used to carry around Maksim’s estate.
My heart stops dead in my chest.
“Put her down,” I bark, already moving. “She’s pregnant—”
“She weighs nothing,” Vaska says calmly, “Same as always.”
He spins her once, not fast, just a slow, easy turn that makes her giggle.
I nearly have an aneurysm.
“Vaska,”I grit, every vein in my body ready to burst. “Down.Now.”
He pauses.
Shrugs.
And sets her gently on her feet like she’s made of porcelain.
“Congratulations little Vasi.”
She beams up at him. “Thank you.”
Heat is rising in my chest like a furnace, that familiar, territorial surge that comes whenever another man touches my wife.
Even if it’s Vaska, who’s known her since she was a child.
Even if it’s completely innocent.
She’s mine.
“She was always tiny,” Vaska says to me. “Even as baby.”
I watch as Vasilisa turns to Luna, instantly swept back into excited chatter.
“You touch my wife like that again and Iwillslice out your tongue and force it down your throat,” I grit.
He freezes.
