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When he’s finished, he lies down, wrapping his arms around me and hugging me close, before he pulls the duvet over us. My cheek is pressed against his chest and the steady rhythm of his heartbeat thumps against my ear. The shadows of my nightmare drift away, and I work an arm free from my towel and wrap it around his waist.
I am safe. Here with him, I’m always safe. When I think back on the last year of my life, one fact remains — he has protected me since the day we met. I’m mourning the family I once had, but this is my family now, right here.
Leo was my brother. The boy with the floppy blonde hair and sparkling blue eyes will always be my brother. But the man he became, the one who offered me up like a piece of meat to pay off his debts to the men who ruined my life, he was not my brother. I wouldn’t do something like that to my worst enemy, let alone someone I was supposed to love and care about.
Dante was right. He didn’t kill Leo. He killed the shadow that my brother had become. And he did it to protect me and our baby, because Leo would come back as soon as he was in some trouble again. It was the one thing I could rely on him for.
A single tear rolls down my cheek, and Dante brushes it away with the pad of his thumb.
“I’m sorry about what I said before,” I whisper.
“Don’t be, kitten. It’s the truth. I’m not a good man, but I’m okay with that.”
I don’t agree, but I’m not going to argue because I know what he means now when he says that. “I’m okay with it too,” I say instead.
“I’m glad.”
“You are a good husband. And I know you’re going to be an incredible father.”
He kisses the top of my head. “Get some sleep, kitten. No more nightmares, okay?”
“No more nightmares.”
“Ti amo.”
“I love you too.”
Chapter53
Dante
The rising sun casts a long shadow over my desk as Lorenzo sits in silence, occasionally nodding his head to let me know he is listening. Maximo is beside him as I tell my older brother about Leo Evanson and everything I’ve learned in the past two days. I stop short of telling him that I shot our own father in the head.
He knows.
“So, when will they find his body?” he asks quietly.
“In a few hours probably. As soon as his housekeeper arrives and realizes he hasn’t got up for his nine a.m. cigar and coffee.”
Lorenzo rubs a hand over his beard. “And we will start a war, brother? To avenge our father’s death?” He snickers, but there is no humor in it — only menace.
“We’ll avenge his death, of course.”
“By taking out the Russians?”
“By taking out Dominik Pushkin for the murder of our beloved father and supporting Dmitri Varkov to be Dominik’s successor,” I say, leaning forward in my chair. “Dmitri has been priming his small army for a takeover for the past year. The Russians are about to have a civil war anyway. We’re simply helping them along. And we’ll have Dmitri’s loyalty when he’s the new head of the Bratva.”
“But we are going to war?” Lorenzo asks.
“I take it you’re on board, then?”
“When have I ever not been by your side, brother?”
“Oh, I’ve missed you two hellraisers,” Maximo says with a grin as he leans back in his seat and looks between my eldest brother and me. “It’s been far too quiet around here lately.”
Lorenzo gives Maximo a sideways eye roll before turning his attention back to me. “It shouldn’t be a shock that he was involved in it, but it still is.”
“I know.”
