Page 99 of Bought By Sin

“And how are things in here?” He approached the bed and tipped his chin in Mila’s direction.

“Stable. In progress.” I sighed as I looked at her before facing him. “She’s recovering well.”

“And you?” He raised his brows.

“Me?” I hadn’t been hit.

“Yes. You.” When he could likely tell that I wasn’t following, he shook his head. “Don’t be dense. How are you handling almost losing her?”

I stood, needing to stretch my legs for a moment. He got the point and stepped out of the room with me where I could pace and hopefully my voice wouldn’t carry and be so loud that I’d keep her up or bother her.

“I’m handling it with the plan that I will claim her as soon as she’s awake.”

He walked with me, watching me seriously as I headed for the open door.

“As my partner. My wife. My woman. My everything.” She already was. My heart would be forever connected to her, and if she needed time to accept that, we had the rest of our lives for her to catch up to me.

“Is that so?” he asked, almost teasingly.

“It is. It will be.” I crossed my arms and glanced over my shoulder at her. “There will be no more questions or excuses. I’ll sever all the ambiguity about her place with me, about her place here in this family.”

He nodded sagely, patting my back as a gesture of good luck.

“As soon as she is stable enough to walk down an aisle, I am marrying her.”

Letting out a heavy exhale, he stuck his hands in his pockets. “I guess it wouldn’t be too pre-emptive of me to pass the word along to Elena and Carina. I’m sure they can get started with some basics of a hasty wedding plan.”

“And an officiant,” I reminded him. “This will be a legitimate union.”

“Of course,” he agreed.

“The only binding contract she should ever be in is one of matrimony. With me.”

He smiled. “Not that you need it, but if you were looking for my blessing or permission… you have it.”

I risked a smile too. I didn’t need his approval to marry Mila and bring her deeper into the fold of what it meant to be part of our family. But I appreciated how open he was to accepting her. He and Maksim had accepted her back when she had instinctively moved to protect Elena and Carina. When she first showed more of who she was as a person, the heart she tried to hide behind all those layers.

“We will all be glad to welcome her—officially—to the family as your wife,” he said.

Perhaps his congratulatory wording was premature, but I also knew I could take his word for it that he meant every bit of that statement.

Alexei no longer warned me to be careful with this mysterious slave I’d brought home.

Viktor didn’t comment about her being invited to discussions that used to be exclusive to us.

No one in the Bratva would ever question her worth and right to belong with us, to be my better half.

“You know, I’ve been thinking about it quite a bit lately, with Gregori showing up and this network of his…”

His expression darkened.

“Gregori’s return reinforces my belief that family isn’t ever only defined by blood. You choose your family, too.” I almost smiled. “Like how I chose to see Uncle Dmitri as the true father figure in my life. How I saw him as more of my father than Gregori ever could have.”

He scoffed. “Hell, Lev. My father is bound to us all. You’re still his blood relative as his nephew.”

“Yes. But I’ve never wanted to even consider a blood relation to Gregori.”

“No one would ever assume that. We’ve all disowned him.”