Page 126 of Bratva Brother’s Bride

“Still with me?” I murmur into her hair, my hand stroking down her back in slow sweeps.

I tilt her chin up gently, meeting her eyes with a soft smile before trailing my lips down her neck and collarbone.

“You are so good for me,” I whisper, pressing another kiss just below her navel. “You always are.”

She just smiles sleepily and tugs me upward so she can cuddle into my side.

“Love you,” Vera murmurs.

“Love you, too.”

EPILOGUE

The salt air carries the kind of peace I’ve spent a lifetime chasing. I stand on the deck of the beach house, hands gripping the railing while the sun goes down behind me and the last of it burns across the water. The sky over the Atlantic is streaked with tangerine and bruised purple.

I bought this place six weeks ago. Cash, so there’s no paper trail worth following. It’s a weathered shingle-style house perched on a dune overlooking a private stretch of beach on the Outer Banks. The realtor called it a fixer-upper, and I saw a fortress.

A place where Vera could grow round and soft and safe, where the only sounds would be the gulls.

Only Oksana and Lev knew where we were at first. Oksana, because someone had to know, and I trusted her with Vera’s life long before I trusted her with my own. Lev, because Lev had been the one to find the house and install the security system that I insisted on.

Yelena was brought into the circle when Vera needed someone to monitor the pregnancy.

I wanted to disappear completely. To fall off the map and become ghosts. It’s a peace I didn’t know I’d ever get to enjoy.

So here I am.

The sliding glass door opens behind me, and I don’t have to turn to know it’s her. I know the rhythm of her steps now, the slight hesitation in her gait that comes from the extra weight she carries and the way her hand always finds the railing for balance. I know the particular warmth of her body when she presses into my back, the smell of her skin mixed with the salt air and the lavender lotion she rubs on her stomach every night.

Tonight she doesn’t come up behind me. She comes to stand beside me, and I turn to look at her because I can’t help myself. Looking at her has become as essential as breathing.

She’s wearing a sundress the color of ripe peaches, the fabric flowing over the beautiful curve of her belly like water.

“Roman.”

I reach for her automatically, my hand finding the curve of her hip. “What is it?”

She holds out an envelope. After all these months, after everything we’ve survived, she still makes my breath catch.

“I had another ultrasound today,” she says, her voice carrying that slight breathlessness she gets when she’s trying not to cry. “While you were on the phone with Lev, Yelena came to the house.”

I frown slightly. Yelena was supposed to check on her this week. I just didn’t realize she was coming today, and I still don’t like the idea of Vera being examined without me there, without my hand to hold.

“Is everything alright?” The question comes out rougher than I intend.

Vera’s smile is luminous. “Everything is more than alright.”

She nods toward the envelope, and I realize I’m still holding it. I slide the glossy pictures free.

The black-and-white images are smudged and strange. I see curves and shadows, the outline of something that looks almost alien, almost otherworldly. Then Vera touches my arm and points with a finger that trembles slightly.

“There,” she whispers. “And there.”

Suddenly the images resolve into something miraculous.

“Twins. We’re having twins.”

“Girls,” Vera says, and she laughs. “Twin girls. Can you imagine?”