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Strange—in the past, it would have been effortless to leave the brutal killer part of myself down in the basement where it belongs. I’d shed it like a snakeskin and play whatever role was next required of it.
Now, though, it feels almost like I’m lying to her. Like Yan’s blood is still caked on my hands. Like touching Paige with those same hands will stain her in a way I never, ever intend to do.
I glance down at my knuckles surreptitiously to make sure they’re clean. Then I straighten back up and put on the mask I was born to wear.
“You’re supposed to be resting,” I say to Paige.
“Your mom decided to pay us a visit. Isn’t that nice?” she asks brightly. There’s not an ounce of insincerity in her tone. She’s actually happy to see my mother here again so soon.
“Mother,” I say in a voice that is decidedly un-enthusiastic. “Did you forget something from last night?”
She gives me a cool smile. “I forgot what a poor host you make. Thank goodness your wife is more welcoming.”
“Don’t mind him,” Paige says quickly. “He just gets grumpy when he’s stressed.”
The fact that she’s even noticed that characteristic of mine feels too intimate to classify our relationship as a “business arrangement.” Not to mention that I opened up to her last night. We made love—that’s the only way to describe what happened between us—and I woke up next to her.
In some ways, seeing her first thing in the morning was more intense than the sex itself.
“Well, why don’t you hurry and get changed? Then we can head out and leave Mr. Grumpy to his own devices,” my mother suggests.
Paige nods and glides past me with a secretive little smile.
“Where are you going?”
“Lunch,” Mother answers for her as Paige disappears around the corner. “I thought we could discuss wedding details.”
“We’re already married.”
“Yes, but I wasn’t there to see it,” she says sharply. “So as far as I’m concerned, you’re not married.”
“Ma—”
“Why didn’t you tell us?” she interrupts, her voice bristling with hurt. “Getting married is a monumental occasion. Why would you assume that I wouldn’t want to see my only remaining son make that step in his life?”
I grimace. “It… happened fast.”
“So fast that you forgot your family in the process?” she asks, really holding my balls to the fire. “Though I suppose that wasn’t so difficult, considering you’ve all but cut us out of your life.”
“It has nothing to do with you,” I say irritably. “I’m just –
“Family trumps everything else. Including the Bratva,” she says, refusing to hear my flimsy excuses. “You may be a don, but before you were that, you were my son. You were Nikita’s brother. Cyrille’s brother-in-law. Ilya’s uncle.”
“I know that.”
“Do you? Because sometimes, I think the moment you put the crown on your head, you forgot who you were before. You’ve lost your way.”
“I didn’t lose my way,” I lash out with a ferocity that surprises even me. “I lost my brother.”
She doesn’t blink in the face of my rage and my grief. She just says in a soft voice, too sympathetic by miles, “I would argue they’re the same thing.”
That gives me pause. Because she isn’t wrong. Maksim was always meant to lead; I was supposed to stand by his side. When he died, I had to pick up his yoke and a lifetime of responsibility I never asked for.
The crown isn’t just heavy on my head—it’s fucking crushing me.
“Don’t keep my wife out too long,” I tell her flatly. “She’s pregnant. She needs to rest.”
“I don’t intend on tiring her out.”
