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I snap the flame to life and toss it down the hallway. Almost instantly, the bloom of heat is oppressive, sending sweat stinging down my spine. But the moment I see Piper step out of the locker room with Benjamin tucked into her arms, I don’t feel a thing.
“Timofey,” she breathes. “What did you—”
I squeeze her hand and pull her towards the door. “This place can burn. None of it matters as long as I have you.”
She smiles, and we walk into the cool evening air as a family.
EPILOGUE I: TIMOFEY
“I’m feeling quite honored because this is the first anyone has done with either of you in over a year. Since before Viktorov Industries went up in flames.” The reporter widens her eyes and takes us both in—the three of us, actually. “Since before you had a baby, too. Congratulations, by the way. He’s an angel.”
Piper adjusts Samuil in her arms. “Thank you. Hopefully, he’ll stay sleeping just like this so you keep that opinion of him. You’d think differently if you were here last night.”
“Not a sound sleeper?” the reporter asks.
Piper lowers her chin, eyebrow arched. “Monica, when I tell you he did not sleep for a single minute all night, I mean it literally.”
“We could have rescheduled. I would have understood! Especially around this time of year.” She gestures to the towering Christmas tree to our right. “It’s a busy season.”
“Every season is busy,” I say. “No amount of exhaustion will keep us from promoting the Christmas auction.”
Monica smiles. “Yes. And I promise we’ll get to that, but you have to answer some other questions for me, too. My editor would fire me in a New York minute if I let you get away without answering some questions.”
I sense Piper stiffen next to me.
There are countless reasons we haven’t done any interviews in the last year. One of them being that Piper wasn’t ready. Overnight, her life changed. She went from a single woman scraping by to a mother in a relationship with a Bratva don. She’s been the target of attacks. She’s seen death.
I wanted to allow her as much time as she needed to process all of that trauma and revel in our little family before I opened us up to the world again.
She reaches over and squeezes my hand, a gesture the eagle-eyed interviewer doesn’t miss. She jots something down in her notebook.
“We finally can answer some questions,” Piper says softly. “With the ongoing trials, our attorneys rightfully asked us not to speak out. Now that they’ve ended, we have more freedom.”
“It was hard to stay quiet with so many nasty rumors swirling,” I add.
Nasty, definitely. But rumors? Hardly.
I killed Kreshnik Xhuvani and Sergey Viktorov with my bare hands and set Viktorov Industries on fire. I’d do it again, too, if given the chance.
But that’s not the story we went with.
“That’s a good place to start,” Monica says. “There is maybe no name more likely to split a crowd than Timofey Viktorov. People either love you or loathe you. There doesn’t seem to be a middle ground.”
Piper loops her arm around mine and snuggles close. “Count me with the ‘love’ crowd.”
Monica smiles. “Some people call you a hero. They say you walked away from your father’s tarnished legacy and started again. Rising from the ashes, you could say. Others think maybe your hands aren’t so clean. Why do you think you divide people like that?”
I shrug. “Powerful men always draw detractors. It doesn’t matter what kind of good you try to do in this world, there will always be people who think it’s an act. And I don’t want to point the finger at you, Monica, but—”
“Uh-oh,” she chuckles. “I feel like you’re going to point the finger at me.”
Piper pats my arm, taking over the conversation. “Not you specifically, but the news has been running so many wild stories over the last year. One article hinted that I sent my family to Mexico to escape Timofey’s reach and that he is holding me captive.”
I gesture around at the lush garland hanging from the roaring fireplace and the tray of peppermint chocolate cookies Akim made for the interviewer. “Does this look like a prison?”
“If it is, it’s the nicest prison I ever saw.” Monica laughs appreciatively.
“We’re just a little dubious about allowing press into our baby bubble,” Piper continues. “We don’t want anything to ruin it.”
