Page 24
The phone rings, pulling me back from the brink. I answer immediately. “Talk,” I bite out.
“We traced the apartment building. One of the residents is living under an alias, but our contacts identified him as Mikhail Balshov.”
The name means something immediately. Balshov. Bratva.
My grip tightens around the phone. “Mikhail Balshov?”
“Yes, boss. There’s more.”
“There better fucking be.”
“We ran a deeper background check on Katya.” I go completely still. “Her mother was married to Yuri Balshov.”
For one long second, the world goes silent. Yuri fucking Balshov.
The name carries a history ugly enough to make even men in my world cautious. A Bratva Pakhan known for cruelty, excess, and the kind of depravity that makes decent men want to wash their hands after hearing about it.
“No,” I say quietly.
“She’s his stepdaughter.”
The pieces slam together. The family she never talks about. The reason she ran from New York. The way she freezes whenever the subject of family comes up.
Fuck.
I sink onto the edge of the bed, staring at the pregnancy test still in my hand. The woman I love is a Bratva princess. And she is carrying my child. Of all the fucking women in the world, I had to fall for the one woman guaranteed to make my life complicated.
A bitter laugh leaves me. “This is going to be a goddamn disaster.”
But even as I say it, my eyes drop to the test. My baby. My woman. Whatever happens next, I already know one thing. I’m going after her. And God help anyone who thinks they can stand between me and my family.
***
Katya
New York has never felt like home.
Even as a child, I learned that there were houses you lived in and places where you felt safe, and the two things weren’t always the same. Now I’m sitting in my younger sister’s hotel suite surrounded by flowers, dresses, wedding invitations, and the excited chaos of Anya getting married, and I should feel happy.
I do feel happy for her. I just can’t stop feeling sick. I barely make it to the bathroom before the nausea overwhelms me, and when I finally straighten, wiping my mouth and staring at my pale reflection, my hand automatically settles over my stomach.
There’s nothing to see yet. Nothing anyone else could know. But I know. My baby is there. Dario’s baby.
The thought should fill me with nothing but happiness, and some part of me is still ridiculously, hopelessly happy. But that joy has become tangled with fear since I learned the truth about him. I spent the flight to New York convincing myself I needed answers, and once I arrived, I started digging.
I wish I hadn’t. Dario Moretti isn’t simply in the mafia. He is the don of the American Moretti syndicate. Powerful, well connected, and dangerous. The kind of man whose name appears in whispers, whose influence stretches far beyond the legitimate companies he allows the public to see.
And suddenly every little thing about him makes sense. The way he walks silently into a room. The way Dario can make a threat sound almost casual. Those dark eyes that can turn terrifying in half a second. The calls he takes outside.
The way he seems cloaked with an air of danger until one melting look from him makes it disappear. I should be terrified of him. But the strangest thing is that I have never been afraid of Dario himself. I’ve seen the danger in him.
I’ve felt it. I know exactly what kind of man he is. Yet not once have I believed that danger was meant for me. With me, Dario is different. Controlling, yes. Possessive enough to drive me insane, definitely. He likes knowing where I am, what I’m doing, when I’ll be back.
He takes care of things without asking and gives orders like the rest of the world exists to follow them. And somehow, with me, all that hardness becomes something else. Oh God, I love him so much, and I don’t know what to do.
“Katya?”
I turn at the sound of Anya’s voice and force a smile. She’s standing in the doorway, studying me with the expression of a sister who knows when I’m lying.
