Page 54 of Sinful Claim


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I kept my promise to teach Faye how to fly, and she’s become an absolute natural with all the practice she’s had. She was so committed from the beginning that I knew she was going to become proficient in a matter of months, but her dedication has paid off in ways I never would have expected. She can fly across the country to both coasts now, and we’ve been able to spend short weekends in new cities together while Adam watches over Rose.

Speaking of the two, they’re the best friends I’ve ever seen. I don’t think Adam had interacted with many babies before Rose, if any, so we were off to a bit of a rough start, but now they’re so close that it’s almost funny. Rose has been learning different facial expressions, and I swear they have a secret silent language that they use to talk shit about the people in the room.

Today we’ve decided to take a family trip to Alaska as Faye’s first trip flying solo over the ocean. She kept saying how nervous she was, but I could see the excitement in her eyes every time I’d mentioned it to her before we left. She feels so accomplished and fulfilled now that she’s out of her old job, and it feels amazing to know that she could do that because of me.

She’s never asked me for a damn thing. She’s so simplistic and genuine that money doesn’t impress her at all. What she wants is experiences, something that can never be taken away from her. She tells stories better than anyone I know, and she can captive the energy in every room that she walks into when we’re out at parties or with friends.

After we’ve been in the air for about two hours, Adam comes to the front of the plane to the cockpit with a bright-eyed Rose in his arms. He’s holding her extra tight with his prosthetic hand, and sometimes it’s easy for me to forget what he had to go through for that hand to begin with. I know it’s not healthy to put the past behind us when something to insane and heavy happened to all of us. But sometimes I look around at their carefree, smiling faces and choose to let the past die just for a bit.

Everybody is happy, everybody feels at home in the world, and we’re all closer than ever. Adam and I have been able to reconnect and even settle some disputes we’d had in our past when we were teenagers. Faye and Adam act like siblings themselves, and it feels like I finally have the real family that I always needed.

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PREVIEW OF THE BRATVA’S BABY OBSESSION

Roza

The shadow is everywhere, darting back and forth behind me as the sky grows dark. They aren’t even trying to hide their presence with their off-key walk and the inky cast of their large figure by the streetlights.

My father has many enemies as the bratva boss. Taras Kalashnikov is practically a god in the city, with his power, money, and status. No one would be stupid enough to target his daughter, unless they’re keen on having their head rolling down fifth avenue.

But then again…

My stomach churns, and I attempt to swallow my nervousness. I only have a year left of school, expected to graduate on my twenty-sixth birthday.

I haven’t even started my life yet!

But the shadow doesn’t adhere to my mental pleas for sympathy. It continues to follow me, even as my steps quicken to something just barely less than a full-on run. Suddenly, the white-noise buzz of excited students from minutes before seems like a music compared to the echoing clack of my shoes against the brick sidewalk.

I’d prefer to be lonely if it meant being alone.

Now, Iknowsomeone is following me. They’ve made their presence obvious, but they still choose to dart in and out of the shadows for some reason.

Are they toying with me on purpose? Working me up into a paranoid frenzy for fun?

God, what if it’s just some drunken jock who is playing tricks on me? I’ll give that asshole a piece of my mind.

I’m about to pull out my phone and dial for my father when the shadow finally reveals itself. A man lurches at me from behind, grabbing my arm and yanking me back so hard that I can feel my brain slamming against the inside of my skull from the inertia.

My vision goes gray for a split second before I’m able to see what’s happening. I open my mouth to scream, but a large hand slams down over my lips, pressing them hard against my teeth as he drags me away from the public sidewalk into an alley.

I suck in air through my nose, my heart beating so hard that it’s painful as I claw at my attacker’s thick, hairy forearm. I wish I had taken some sort of self-defense class. I knew there was always a looming threat of being attacked, but I feigned ignorance to forget my identity.

Bad choice.

A few feet into the alley, my attacker spins me around, pushing me back into a mossy concrete wall. I bounce off it, tumbling to his feet and nearly cracking my head open on the ground before catching myself painfully on my hands.

He bends down, pressing his hand into the back of my neck and forcing me the rest of the way onto the unforgiving ground. Glancing up, I can finally see him in the dim streetlight that floods in from the road we left, but I can’t make out enough detail to identify him in a police line-up.

If I even make it that far.

From the details I can make out, I immediately peg my attacker as a bratva henchman. He’s not some common street gangster preying on college girls as they walk home at night, which means this attack is probably personal. He must know who I am, and he’s probably here to kill me.

I desperately search for sympathy in his eyes, something to indicate that he’s not merely here to kill me. Maybe he wants to kidnap me and hold me for ransom. At least, at the end of it all, I’d be able to walk away with my life.

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