Kiril:They’d better be.
Boris:I prefer them squirming.
Georgi:Put the damn phones down and pay attention. Boss is ready to strike.
Boris:Anyone want Italian for dinner?
Kiril:Me! Pasta and red sauce at my house tonight?
Boris:As long as your wife isn’t cooking. She isn’t looking too good.
Kiril:The correct term is “beautiful” or “glowing.”
Kiril:And I would never ask a woman 38 weeks prego to cook. I’ll make the pasta.
Boris:Count me in!
Georgi:Knock it the fuck off and watch the boss’s six!
I held Hristo for a blissful hour—over half a decade ago. While the doctors and surgeons tried and failed to save his mother, I cradled the infant and marveled over how my life had changed. Hristo had an abnormal growth, a bundle of blood vessels on his tiny head back by his ear. The doctors said it would fade as he aged. It didn’t matter to me. He was healthy, and he was mine. The on-and-off again relationship with one of the girls at the club, who’d lied about her birth control, gave me the best possible gift in life.
And then my son was taken away.
Stolen by an unknown enemy, and I razed hell looking for him.
Now he was back. Right within my grasp. No organization, no power player in the underworld was going to stand between me and my own.
But it wasn’t the don who put up the fight. It was the child’s guardian.
She loved him. That much was obvious. It almost soothed my inner rage to see her this fiercely protective of my child. He’d been safe with her. Loved and nurtured. But now it was time for him to come home. That boy in the SUV was my son. My blood. He would grow to rule at my side, to take over every scrap of my kingdom when I was gone.
He was my legacy.
“I have no use for you,” I said, but the lie tasted bitter on my tongue. Poppy was attractive, charming, the kind of woman I couldn’t stop looking at. And she was offering herself to me?
“I beg to differ.” The delicate flower tipped up her chin. “I know everything there is to know about Brady. You said you didn’t want to hurt him? Then don’t separate us.”
That was true. Ripping the child away from those he knew would be unnecessarily cruel. He would get over it. Children were resilient, but since there was another way…and such a tempting way at that.
I took a step forward, ignoring the guns pointed in my direction. “If you come with me, it will be the end of your life as you know it.”
She had to know what was at stake. That this wasn’t some temporary change of residence. My world wasn’t kind to its inhabitants. Every day was a fight for survival.
“Done.” Poppy planted her hands on her hips. She was trying so very hard to hide the shake in her bones.
Deep in my chest, something twinged. Some guilt, perhaps. It was a foreign emotion, not easily recognizable. It was easy to take her, to rip her straight from the pleasant life she led. But her determination was nothing short of admirable. She seemed timid, and I knew she was shy. This fierce side of her? It was stunning.
“You know what I am?” I pressed, taking another step.
Poppy slid a glance down my body. A current of electricity followed her gaze, lighting the nerves along my skin with a dark fire.
“You’re a don, a boss, same as him.” She jerked her chin to the side.
Oh no, my little flower, I am nothing like him.I was a creature far worse. There was no polished veneer to hide behind. My actions were my creed. Even my friends feared me. “And does that frighten you? The prospect of living with mobsters?”
“What you might not know is that I was born the same as Brady. So no, I’m not frightened. This is a kind of homecoming.”The words quaked on her tongue. She was terrified and trying hard not to show it.
“A mafia princess?” How had I not seen it before now? She’d even said it during her rushed explanation, but I was too blazing mad to pick out the detail. It stuck this time. “And yet you’ve been living in the wilderness all this time?”
