They listened without interrupting. The pheromones in the room got so thick my head spun, but they kept the lethal anger banked. They let me finish.
When I did, the silence stretched.
"Should we cancel tomorrow?" Gregor asked.
I thought about it. Three Bratva enforcers looming over my father while he sweated through his expensive coat. It would be easy. Satisfying and I'd enjoy it.
But it wouldn't be mine.
"No," I said. "I need to do this before anything else. I need to say things to him alone." I met each of their eyes in turn. "But be nearby."
"We'll be in the hall," Ivan said. "Right outside the door."
"Not pressed against it with a glass."
Ivan looked offended. "I would never."
Gregor said nothing.
I pointed at him. "You would."
"I would use surveillance equipment."
"Thank you for the honesty. Horrifying but efficient."
Artem's eyes warmed. "We'll give you privacy."
"Russian mafia privacy or normal privacy?"
"Define normal."
"A lack of armed men in decorative plants."
A pause. Ivan looked at Artem. Artem looked at Gregor. Gregor looked at the window.
"Fine," I said. "One decorative plant. But if it rustles, I'm leaving."
I looked at them. My pack. My alphas. They didn't look at me like a broken thing to be fixed or a prize to be guarded. They looked at me like a center of gravity.
Like I was their world.
The heat that uncoiled in my belly had nothing to do with phantom bonds or old fear. It had been weeks since Mac was born. My body was healed. My mind was clear. And the way they were looking at me with patient restraint, waiting for me to come to them, made something in my chest crack open.
I stood up from the armchair.
I reached for Artem first. My fingers threaded into the dark hair at his nape and I pulled him into a slow, deep kiss. His hands landed on my hips, heavy and certain. He made a sound against my mouth that was half relief and half hunger.
I broke the kiss and turned to Ivan. He was already there. I stepped into his chest and he claimed my mouth with the same desperate heat he brought to everything, hands sliding into my hair.
When I pulled back, breathless and dizzy, I found Gregor watching us with eyes that had gone nearly black.
I put my hands on his chest. "I don't want to sleep tonight," I said. "I want my pack."
Gregor's control didn't shatter. It bent, carefully, the way he did everything. He scooped me up and carried me out of the den with Artem and Ivan flanking us through the dark hallways to the master bedroom.
Gregor laid me in the center of the nest like he was returning something precious to its proper coordinates. Three pairs of hands stripped my clothes away. Then they shed their own.
Artem kissed me slowly, filthy, his tongue stroking against mine while Ivan's hands spread my thighs and Gregor's palm settled warm and steady against my ribs.
