Page 25 of The Agreement

Claire was the kind of woman who put decorum and order above everything else. For her to drop that act, considering who was in the house, well it didn’t spell out anything good. He assumed her anger was with him, but Roman stilled in place when she rushed toward him, clutching at the long string of pearls around her neck.

He was tempted to simply walk past her, and ignore the pleading in her eyes. But then she reached for him when she was closer, curling her fingers around his left bicep and gazing up at him with love—pure love from a mother. Emotion so raw, it always made him want to look away when she leveled it on him. Roman had always known his mother loved him. It was inexplicable—something he just knew when she was around him. A tangible feeling beyond the understanding. There was a part of him that thought it weakened him because he loved her, too. But he had never been able to say that love was enough to keep him from causing her pain.

Demyan was the king of New York, wielding unimaginable power over an entire state in the country. From the time he could walk, Roman found himself under his father’s feet constantly, and yet as a child, it was with his mother where he felt safest.

Somehow, that hadn’t changed.

“What do you want to talk about, Ma? Please, don’t act like you didn’t know. He wouldn’t keep something like this from you.”

Claire’s grip on him tightened, her nostrils flared as her lips twitched. Wetness welled in her green eyes. He couldn’t do tears.

No fucking way.

Not right then.

Not from his ma.

Roman was not the man mentally wired to handle his mother’s sentimentality at the same time when he was ready to spontaneously combust from rage. He didn’t want to be an asshole, but he was quickly running out of solutions to keep that from happening.

He tugged at his arm in an effort to pull away from her, but Claire held on tight.

“Yes, I knew. He told me. I know you won’t believe me because you think nothing about this family is worth your while, but I fought him on it. I did, Roman. I don’t want you to go to Chicago. I love having you here ... even if you don’t want to be most of the time.”

As her voice trailed off, Claire finally released her son, making him step back.

“It doesn’t fucking matter, does it?” he asked, letting out a clipped laugh. “The boss made his decision, and we all know what it means. Bratva before blood, Ma. Right?”

It was the brotherhood’s way. A long time ago, he thought he knew what that meant; even believed he was born for it.

“Roman.”

Her chiding did little for him.

“I’m not wrong, though.”

Claire stood a little stiffer. “Even so, your father has never made the wrong decision for this family.”

She held her head high, because God knew even if it broke her heart to send her son away, her loyalty for Demyan would never waver. No matter what happened—love means for always, she told him once when he dared to ask how she could love a man like his father, even if I don’t always like who he sometimes is.

Roman couldn’t help but wonder what that would feel like, to have a woman by his side who was that devoted—someone who blindly loved him, and would sacrifice anything asked if it meant being with him.

He couldn’t imagine it.

Or maybe he didn’t want to.

“Yeah, well, he is right about one thing,” Roman told his mother, refusing to meet her burning gaze. He didn’t want to watch as she fought conflicting emotions—he didn’t want to be one side of the war she had to fight. In the end, she would never defy her husband, and a part of him understood why. “A change of scenery will do me some good. I can’t wait to get the fuck out of here, and stay gone.”

“Don’t say that, you don’t mean—”

He simply walked away from his mother, feeling her stare follow him the whole way down the corridor. He didn’t look back.

FIVE

The one thing Roman knew for sure about Josef Pavlov was that he was nothing like Marky. Older, tattooed from head to toe in the symbolisms of the bratva life like everyone else in Chicago affiliated to the Yazov organization, he wasn’t exactly Roman’s first pick as a partner.

If one wanted to call him that.

Even though the two men were spending a lot of time together in close quarters—the way Roman did with Marky back in New York—Josef was being paid to do it here. And that wasn’t something he could afford to forget.