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I’d met Nikolai with the understanding that he was more like a devil than a man. A hitman, unafraid to take a life. He’d shot those men in my apartment without blinking. He’d killed that man at the other house without breaking a sweat.

Something about today gnawed at me, and I found myself falling into a habit of checking my phone almost obsessively for any updates from him.

Wren and Mila came over later, as expected. We planned to have lunch together and also go over how else I could help the Bratva find Gregori. For a change, we could talk freely without the ever-present fear of Brady overhearing me. Paloma had the idea of taking Brady to the big mansion so he could play with baby Luka. Carina was there with Isabel, since Maksim was with Adrik in his office. While there was a significant age gap between Brady and Luka, it would be good for both of them. For Brady to socialize with someone not an adult and for Luka to get used to not being the only baby or child. More were already on the way. Mila and Wren were expecting, and Carina was convinced she would be pregnant again soon. And Elena was stubbornly refusing to think about being pregnant again, determined to pace herself. If the woman’s morning sickness was any indication, though, she was probably already carrying her second.

Wren called me out on acting weird almost immediately. “Are you worried?”

I shook my head. “No. How can I be? He’s… he’s good at this.” I winced.

“Ah.” Mila nodded. “It’s accepting it that’s getting to you.”

“Accepting what?” I asked.

“Accepting that you’re okay with his planning to kill someone,” she replied. “Being okay with this side of the law.”

I pursed my lips and shook my head. “No, not… not necessarily. I’ve seen him ‘in action’ before. I know he, uh, does what he has to do.” Belatedly remembering that I didn’t have to watch what I said with Brady out of the house, I sighed. “I am fully aware that Nikolia kills people. I’m not struggling with that.”

And I truly wasn’t. Over these weeks of being with him, and after seeing him go to the extreme of killing others just to keep me safe, I’d learned to adjust, to open my eyes and accept both sides of him.

“I’m not… I’m not like Elena. If I try not to talk about the details of what happens in this family, it’s because I don’t want to say anything out loud that Brady could hear. I’m not avoiding details as a way of deflecting like she does. Or like she did. Brady is so young, and while I’m determined to raise him well, I do need to approach how he can understand all this violence in a matter that’s appropriate for his age.”

Wren set her water glass down. “I wholeheartedly agree with you.”

“I think we all would,” Mila said.

“Nikolai has shown me his violent side where his enemies are concerned, but he’s also shown me his tenderness with Brady.”

“And you.” Wren grinned. “If you want to go to the lengths of sheltering Brady about the violence that surrounds us, maybe get some better concealer.” She turned my chin and laughed. “Because you aren’t going to be sheltering him about what a man and woman do at night, walking around with marks like that…”

Mila laughed along with her. I groaned lightly, placing my fingers over the love mark Nikolai had given me on my neck.

“There’s that too,” I admitted. “I have no idea how to talk to Brady about that.”

Wren scoffed. “Isn’t five a little young to have the birds and bees talk?”

I smirked at her. “Not that. But what Nikolai and I are. Or what we want to be. I think half the time, Brady assumes he’s just a friend. Maybe now that I’m working in that office over there, he’ll think that Nikolai is my new boss.” I shrugged. “So far, we’ve been hiding the fact that we’re… together.”

Mila snorted a laugh. “You’re not hiding anything with that hickey.”

I rolled my eyes. “You know what I mean.”

“Actually, I don’t,” Mila said. “She probably doesn’t either. You’re the only one coming into this family with a child. It’s different.”

Wren nodded. “But not bad. And I can’t really relate. I’m sure it is hard for you to explain to him that you’re with a man romantically, just because that would be a potentially awkward conversation. However…” She shrugged. “It’s not like he could be upset, right? He didn’t know his father.”

I shook my head. “No, he never did. Kaleb wasn’t hands-on and involved with any aspect of parenting when Brady was a baby. He couldn’t have really remembered anything that young, anyway.”

“He’s aware of him, though?” Mila asked. “That he was there?”

“Yeah. Sure. I never lied and said he didn’t have a father. Well, he doesn’t and hasn’t. But I showed him a picture of Kaleb, and he knows he died.”

“Then you wouldn’t be challenging him to accept Nikolai as a man in his life,” Wren said. “You wouldn’t be forcing Brady to forget about Kaleb and move on to Nikolai.”

“And that would be so much easier,” Mila added. “He’d be more or less seeing him as his first father.”

I smiled and felt a blush. “Okay, you’re both getting way ahead of yourselves. Nik and I are…” I licked my lips. “We’re taking this slowly. I don’t think he’s rushing to marry me or adopt Brad or…” I glanced at them, finding them wearing matching deadpanned expressions.

“Okay, so maybe that is something on the horizon,” I admitted, unable to stop smiling now.