I rise and wrap an arm around her. “Finally.”
“Finally what?” Enzo says, tugging on my arm.
“Finally, we’re a family. We’re moving to Chicago. What do you think of that?” Katerina says, pushing Enzo’s hair from his forehead.
“Will there be friends?”
“You’ll make lots of friends,” I assure him. “Best yet, we’ll be a family.”
“Yay!” Enzo’s arms shoot up in victory.
“You need to decide what you want to bring from the cottage,” I say.
We make our way to the home Katerina built for her and Enzo.
None of us had been there since Maksim sent men to shoot it up.
But with a focus on moving, those memories don’t seem to bother either Enzo or Katerina.
Enzo rushes to his room to gather up his favorite toys.
I go to the kitchen to pop a few pain relievers.
“Something is up,” Katerina says from the kitchen entry.
"The deal Alessandro made for peace and our freedom includes Valentina marrying Maksim.” I toss the pills into my mouth and chug down water.
Katerina's face drains of color. "No. She can't."
"She's insisting on it. Says it's her choice, her sacrifice." I set the glass in the sink, my mind whirling with possible solutions to this new problem.
"That's suicide. He'll destroy her."
"Alessandro's assigning Cristian Bonetti as her bodyguard, but?—"
"Valentina is strong, stronger than most men I know, but Maksim… he breaks people for sport." Katerina takes my hands in hers. "She's doing this for you. For us."
"I know, and I don't want our happiness built on her suffering."
For a moment, I worry I’ve said something that will cause Katerina to retreat. But she doesn’t. “We could stay?—”
“Staying would be worse. Maksim would see it as a threat. And… fucking hell, Valentina is dead set on this. She sees it as her duty to family.”
Katerina gives me a wan smile. “She’d be pissed if you took it from her.”
I nod. “Crazy, isn’t she?”
“It’s a Dante trait, I’m afraid."
I blow out a breath and pull her close. “Let’s focus on us now. We need to talk to Enzo.”
“Oh?”
I rub my hand over her belly. “He’s going to have a brother or sister.”
Her smile is radiant. “He is.”
We find Enzo sitting cross-legged on the floor, sorting his cars.
