He stared at me, letting me drown in all the love that shone in his dark eyes.
“That’s why I came here to find you. To do this.” I framed his face and kissed him tenderly. “Because I hope you know how thankful I am for you. For all you’ve done for me.”
“I’m thankful foryou, Kalina.” He kissed me back.
“And I want you to know that I realize this is love that makes me stronger. Not only the love I have for you and for Misha, but for myself.”
A wide grin covered his face now.
“Loving myself to stay strong and grow, to keep recovering from that hell I escaped from so I can have a clear path ahead to raising our little one with nothing but nurturing love.”
“We will, Kalina. We will.” He kissed my brow, and I closed my eyes to savor the bliss of having him support me, in good times and bad.
31
ALEXSEI
Acouple of weeks after Kalina came to me and told me that we were growing our family, we made progress on many plans.
She had fully moved into my room closer to Misha. We shared a bed and were together.
But it was more than that. Lots of wheels were rolling and moving us toward our future.
We were house hunting. She was taking a couple of classes. She was helping Misha with homework and watching the kids more to get to know them better.
The first evening she came back to our room after helping Gabriella watch Andre would stay in my mind as a comical moment.
“That child…” she’d said with wide eyes as she dropped onto a chair.
I laughed. “We like to say that he was born with the need to be the center of attention.”
“Yes! That’s exactly it,” she agreed with a laugh. “He’s so sweet. Funny, too. But…”
“Naughty,” I finished for her.
We all had confidence that Andre would mature and address his jealousy about attention as he grew up. To be fair, it was probably harder for him to have so many changes in his young life, going from being the little baby with all the attention on him to so many newcomers born in the family.
However, with all the changes happening in our lives, the most important plan I remained alert for was the mission to take out the rest of the Riveras.
It seemed like the wait would be over, too. Everything was coming together because I headed to Luka’s meeting room now to talk with the others about when we’d make a move.
Striding down the hall, I caught myself from going to Luka’s study, where he usually was.
Before my uncle met Gabriella, he used to be the boss in the office, downtown and committed to filling his waking hours with work. Dedicated to staying busy and doing the same old of running the organization. He’d lost his first wife many years ago, and I saw the toll it took on him. He grieved privately, but he was always half there, like he was waiting to be fully alive again with love lighting his life.
Then when Elena died, he and I had that similarity. We were both widowers. Because of that, we formed a stronger and different kinship from what he had with Emil and Ivan. Almost as if we were comrades for experiencing the same loss.
Now, we were experiencing the same kind of beautiful adventure with our women. He was so much more well-rounded with Gabriella in his life, with Andre and Helene. That didn’t mean he’d loved Emil any less, but there was a new energy of love with Gabriella. It had taken his meeting her to be full again.
Just like it had taken my finding Kalina to fully wake up and open my heart again.
Since he married and started having more children, he switched to working strictly out of his study as a home office. He wanted to be hands-on and involved, and I didn’t blame him.
For bigger meetings like this, we gathered in the conference room for the more strategic operational talk. With more space. I eagerly entered the room, ready to put this plan into action that would keep Kalina safe for good.
Simon was seated in front of a laptop, and he didn’t really glance up to acknowledge me, too busy typing. He did nod at me. “You ready?” he asked as a greeting.
“Very.” I glanced around the room. “Just as soon as everyone else gets here.”
