Page 125 of Inked in Devotion

I thought about Theo. I hoped he’d let himself take a break from the King empire and build a life with Aralina. They were awkward as hell earlier.

Sorcha spotted me and grinned. “There’s my favorite boy.”

“I thought I was your favorite,” another kid of about five piped up.

Gage had already found the soccer ball and was kicking it around with another boy around his age. He also had a chicken finger in his hand.

Boys will be boys.

“He hasn’t eaten,” I told Sorcha. “Doesn’t he look so cute in his suit?”

We both gushed over Sebastian. For a few minutes, I watched him and the kids bouncing around in the inflatable castle. Kolya was right. We needed a backyard. I wanted Sebastian to be active. Not locked up in an apartment to be taken to a park once in a while.

“I'd better head back before Kolya looks for me.”

I stopped by the powder room to make sure I didn’t have baby drool on my cocktail dress. I also refreshed my lipstick. If Marena was part of a kidnapping ring as some of the evidence implied, then why would she continue to haunt me and Sebastian knowing her jig was up?

Or was it?

This had to do specifically with Sebastian. Or then it was the Vozhokari.

I opened the door to the powder room, but a bulky man stood there, startling me. A man I hadn’t seen before but who exuded the same lethal energy as Kolya.

But, no. I would recognize a blue-eyed Petrov anywhere.

The penetrating stare was too unique to miss.

“Hello, Chloe.”

Chapter

Twenty-Eight

Kolya

“I’m saying you should take up the brigadier position. You can spend more time with Chloe and the little one,” Rurik told me.

“I don’t like managing people.”

“But we need balance, comrade. Kirill is the pakhan. We need to re-establish the triumvirate.”

“Because that worked out so well before.”

“Your cousin got greedy.”

I couldn’t deny that part. “Grigori’s failed attempt to usurp the pakhan position from Kirill fractured the triumvirate. Maybe that’s a sign. How do you know I won’t do the same?”

“Because you don’t want it in the first place.”

“And you?”

“We see the bratva as a whole, Kolya. We like what’s best for the organization. Kirill will lead, but he needs to delegate.” He glanced at Kirill, who was in conversation with Theo and Maksim. “Pakhan needs to step back and manage.”

“He enjoys the kill too much.” The only reason I would step back and take the brigadier position was because my desire to be more present in my son’s life was infinitely more appealing than the job. It wasn’t the desire to lead, but the desire to build a securer environment for my family.

Rurik grinned slyly. “And that’s why I have no aspirations for pakhan. I like my little kingdom of real estate and finance. I told Kirill I could convince you.”

I chuckled darkly and craned my neck to look for Chloe. She’d been gone a while. “You haven’t yet.”