Page 16 of Inked in Devotion

“Good one, but that’s a bad joke.” Theo smiled indulgently, even when he had his brow knitted in confusion. When I continued to stare at him, giving him a regretful expression, his jaw unhinged. He pivoted away from me and then scraped a hand down his face. He blew another deep breath before he turned back. “You’re not kidding.”

I shook my head.

For the first time since I’d met him, Theo looked like he might pass out. In the attic even with Jeremiah bleeding to death and going toe-to-toe with the dangerous men from the bratva, he stood resolute. I figured the exhaustion of the past week was catching up with him. And I was the proverbial nail in the coffin.

“Start from the beginning.”

So I recounted the events of the weekend fling, minus the intimate details. Funnily enough, I had no problems recounting the details of my anonymous weekend fling to Dora. But I was caught off guard with how mortifying it was relaying the same encounter to my brother even while leaving out the sexual stuff. Because…the allusion was there. Because…how else could I have ended up pregnant?

Thankfully, Theo’s mouth was flat all throughout the telling, face mostly impassive. When I was done, he asked, “And you think it’s a coincidence?”

“He says it is, but I think he’s hiding something.”

“Fucking bratva,” Theo cursed.

Unfortunately, this arbitration dealt only with Sebastian’s custody, not the circumstances leading up to the pregnancy. So even if there was premeditation, it didn’t factor into his right to see his son.

Our arbiter was of impressive caliber. A retired judge and former UN negotiator, Doctor Eliza Hawthorne was sixty-one years old and had a doctorate in international family law and a master’s in behavioral psychology. She had come highly recommended because she had zero tolerance for emotional theatrics and had connections in high places that discouraged intimidation.

The meeting was in a neutral territory, a building owned by Margo Winthrop. I was meeting her after the arbitration to discuss my other options now that I’d fully embraced my King family name.

Name changes usually took weeks or months, but my last name was officially changed to King in three days. There was no announcement in the papers regarding King heirs coming forward.

Sebastian and I were officially Chloe and Sebastian King, and were noted in the arbitration documents.

The elevator stopped three floors below the penthouse level. It opened to white and black marble floorings. A floor-to-ceiling mosaic mirror made up the wall between the elevators. In its reflection, I saw five men dressed in suits in a glass-walled waiting room.

Kolya, Kirill, and his half brother, Maksim. The other two were probably their lawyers.

As Theo and I approached with our legal team, my eyes zeroed in on Kolya. I couldn’t help it. His raw power couldn’t be contained and threatened to explode out of his meticulously tailored dark gray three-piece suit. He even seemed more muscular. His naked body covered in tattoos flashed in my mind. My fingers had reverently traced the beautiful ink. When I met him, his hair was longish and went past his collar. But now, it was short, as if it had once been shaved close to his skull. Probably how he preferred it in prison to prevent anyone from using his hair as leverage in a fight. Both looks suited him. But then he had a beautiful face. Brilliant blue eyes, a chiseled jaw, and gosh, he had a full bottom lip that was wasted on a man, but he used that mouth to perfection when he…

I blinked. Stop it, Chloe.

The corner of Kolya’s mouth lifted as if aware of where my thoughts went. My body heated under my prim, mauvy-taupe suit.

“Chloe.” His voice rumbled, and he stepped into me and gave me a hug as if our last encounter hadn’t ended in animosity. “Good to see you.”

I remained nonverbal and twisted the ruby ring on my finger. A habit I did when I was nervous. The less I said, the better. If he was trying to soften me up so that I would give in to his demands, it wasn’t going to work. I nodded to Kirill and it was the first time I’d met Maksim. The brothers bore identical indifferent faces and icy blue eyes; one would call dead eyes. The only time Kirill warmed up to any degree was when he was around Lucy. His transformation was a whiplash to see.

“Where’s our boy?” he asked.

Our boy. I still couldn’t refer to Sebastian as ours. He was mine.

“Sebastian is with Dora. Uhm, it was noted in the arbitration prep notes he wouldn’t be here.”

“If he bothered to read them,” Maksim muttered.

A thread of tension stretched between the two. Kirill sighed.

“Chloe.” Theo’s voice was firm as he grasped my elbow to surreptitiously pull me back from Kolya’s hold, but he didn’t miss it. His eyes narrowed at my brother. God, the testosterone in this room was suffocating despite the two women on our legal team.

The elevator doors slid open again, and a woman swept out, flanked by two bodyguards. She must be Dr. Hawthorne. Her confidence emanated from the way her beige suit conformed to her body. Not too tight, not too loose, just a classy fit that meant business. She had a pageboy cut, silver-blonde hair, but it was the way her heels clacked on the tiles that announced her no-nonsense attitude.

“Everyone is here, it appears?”

“Yes,” Theo and Maksim said in unison.

We followed Dr. Hawthorne into a conference room. All dark wood paneling, and a view of the Manhattan skyline.