Page 108 of Bought By Sin

Alexei was right about Adrik. It was the most frazzled and stressed I’d ever seen the man. A leader in the making. An interim Pakhan. The boss. But on the day his wife went into labor and there was a concern for slight complications with her delivery, he was only human. Worried and frantic.

By the time the three of us arrived, though, there was no rush or urgency to support Adrik and wait with him.

Baby Luka was already here.

He was born just about when Alexei had shown up to tell us that we should come support the family. In a rush of a delivery, the first heir of the next generation had made his hasty entrance.

Healthy and hearty and larger than perhaps Elena had been prepared for, Luka came into the world screaming and crying, proving that while his mother could be a quiet woman, he was not.

Lev held my hand and we stuck together as congratulations went around. All six of the Volkov men, plus me and Carina, took our turns to admire the baby. But when it was Lev’s turn to hold his cousin’s child, there was no doubt in my mind.

This is going to be us one day.

Seeing Lev cradling a precious baby in his big, strong, tatted arms did something to me. Maybe it was an ovary explosion with all my hormones heightened to releasing eggs and wanting to carry his child now. Something about this brutal killer so soft and gentle as he talked to baby Luka just hit me so hard in the chest.

“You’re looking a little rabid there,” Carina teased, sidling up to me.

I smiled and didn’t try to deny it. “I…”

She patted my back. “It’s not like the wedding is a long wait.” She winked at me.

“It’s too soon,” I told her.

She furrowed her brow. “The wedding?” She scoffed. “Oh, don’t even talk to me about that.”

I smiled again. She and Maksim had been married through an arrangement, and I couldn’t compete with the warp speed like that.

“It’s too soon to start having a family,” I confided in her. It was a slow process of befriending Elena and Carina, but they weren’t pushing me to be besties overnight or anything like that. They respected me, though, for how I’d wanted to protect them all those weeks ago, and I knew that with time, we’d be a close group of women.

“There’s so many things going on,” I explained. “Baby Luka’s here.” I gestured at her belly. “You’re next. Gregori’s still out there and…” I sighed. “It’s too soon for me and Lev to plan like that.”

But when I was ready, when the time was right, I would embrace having my own child to raise and love with this rugged man who’d always be mine. When I had a son or daughter to protect, I would do so with my whole heart and all my might. I would be the end of the cycle of hell that my parents caused. The Becketts had sold me to slavery and that would never be a possibility for my children.

“Too soon to start a family,” I repeated softly, wistfully watching Lev as he held baby Luka and smiled at me.

Carina rubbed my back. “Too soon to start your own family, you mean. Because you’ve found your family with us.”

As she left me with that deep and profound message, going to check on Elena, I smiled and knew that I certainly had.

I wasn’t alone or captive.

I was surrounded by those who let me be free to love.

39

LEV

In a true conflict of directions—or with the expected opposite forces of life—baby Luka’s arrival was a bright moment of joy and hope for the family while Uncle Dmitri’s imminent death heralded a grave loss.

Two weeks after Adrik and Elena had brought Luka home, we were all summoned to discuss Uncle Dmitri’s decline.

“I’m surprised he’s held on for this long,” Maksim admitted as we all gathered in the great room where the doctor had just spoken to us all before leaving.

I nodded, but I was too stuck on watching Mila hold Luka and smile at him as he slept. Watching my fiancée with a baby was the ultimate catalyst to driving me wild.

I could so easily see her pregnant, her stomach swollen with my child.

I could envision her carrying our son or daughter, smiling sweetly at them as they slept peacefully.