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There’s no such thing as perfect, Louisa. You know that.

I had my first experience of determining the likelihood of a man being perfect when I was with Kaleb. He hadn’t been perfect, but at the time, almost good enough. But Nikolai? In the short two weeks that we’d been living together here and learning each other, he seemed like both the definition and opposite of perfection.

A Mafia killer couldn’t be perfect. He’d flat out explained that I’d only ever caught his attention because he was supposed to kill me. Yet, he’d killed others who’d wanted to harm me.

A strong and ruthless crime boss couldn’t be perfect. He’d come home on several occasions with the smell of blood on his hands and a few swollen marks on his face from fighting someone. But he never raised his hand at me or Brady.

A sexy, mysterious specimen of man couldn’t be perfect. I overheard Carina and Wren joking and teasing him about being a player, a womanizer. However, he had yet to make a move on me.

“You’re about to have smoke coming out of your ears with whatever’s got you thinking so much,” Carina teased as she carried her sleeping daughter. She’d come inside to feed Isabel and was passing me by as I cleaned up from the last of the large family dinner.

A family dinner.

I hadn’t had a family other than my son for years.

My parents were gone. I was an only child. No aunts or uncles. When I was married to Kaleb, he hung out with work friends at sports bars more than he was home with me, and his parents were long gone too.

I missed having a family.

And it was tricky to remind myself that I still didn’t have one here.

All these men and women weren’t treating me like a member of the staff but rather, a resident who belonged. While it was hard to keep track of who was who among the men, the women were easier to remember. Elena was quiet. Carina was sassy and outspoken. Mila was timid but observant. Wren was witty and warm.

I shrugged. “It’s nothing.”

“Oh, that’s not a nothing look.” She paused, swaying from side to side to rock her baby so she wouldn’t wake again.

“Yeah,” Elena said as she came from the kitchen, where Paloma was talking to Adrik. “What’s got you looking so… reflective?”

I shrugged again. “It’s kind of hard to see myself as a captive anymore.”

Carina rolled her eyes. “Maybe because you never were.”

“It’s hard to see myself as someone who needs to be in, um, Witness Protection anymore, either.” I stopped wiping the table.

“Is that bad?” Elena asked.

“It’s weird.” I leaned against the table and crossed my arms. “Everything seems so domestic. Like I’m a guest.”

Carina smiled. “Maybe because you are.” She sighed. “Don’t tell me you feel like you’re missing out on anything from before.”

I shook my head. “No. That’d be a lie. I do not miss it. Not any of it. I don’t miss the pressure to babysit the Richards boys. I don’t miss the feeling of never being able to watch my son grow up, always having to go to work. I definitely don’t miss going to that office and dealing with those men.” I smirked. If I could go on, I’d admit that I liked feeling cared for, for once in my life. With Paloma as a friend. I enjoyed seeing Brady so happy and content.

But the moment I clung to those thoughts, the struggles of the reciprocal ideas came too. This couldn’t last. I already felt like an obligation when Nikolai would leave to work and then come back so tired. He had a life. A job. Commitments, while I had to do… nothing?

I didn’t miss struggling in my former, “normal” life, but I would have to go back to it. I’d paid all the debt bills the day before Nikolai showed up, but in a couple more weeks, I’d need to use the very last of my savings to cover the next month’s payment. Then I’d be broke, completely penniless but duped into thinking I was a guest here, protected as a witness.

Elena and Carina shared about how they struggled to adjust to being part of the Volkov Family. While they skirted around details—which reminded me that I was still an outsider who couldn’t be trusted with all the details—I looked at Nikolai standing off to the side while everyone else stayed busy. Lev and Alexei were arguing. Maksim and Viktor were talking to Wren. Mila was holding baby Luka and making him smile at her antics.

But there was Nikolai, giving me yet another glimpse of the loneliness that I couldn’t help but notice. Beneath his stoic exterior, he seemed so apart from the others. Maybe it was because he was the youngest. Or perhaps he’d always felt dismissed. It couldn’t be true. But it hardly mattered why he seemed to project this loneliness. It only mattered that I noticed it. That I saw him. And it only made me wish that he could see me, that he could notice that I was here with all this confusion about what I’d asked him that first night.

What he needed.

And what he wanted.

They needed me close in case someone tried to come after me as a witness of that video.

But I still couldn’t comprehend what this tall, hulking killer wanted.