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I looked between her and Andrei before waving my hand in dismissal at the rest of the people in the room. “We can continue this later,” I demanded, and they all left without a moment of argument. They all passed by Ciara with lingering glances, but each man was wise enough to keep his eyes far from the parts of her that belonged solely to me. I nodded my head at Andrei, and he closed the door, sealing himself on the other side of it. I imagined he’d be waiting there until I called for him again. “What happened?” I repeated.
“They found me at work. I hid, and they left. Nothing came of it, but I see why you were so concerned, so I’m not going back.” She shrugged as if that was the least of her concerns. “That’s not why I wanted to talk with you.”
I narrowed my eyes, frustrated that she’d downplay such a threat. I tugged out my phone and texted Nadia to pull the footage from the bar, track down the people who found her, and take care of them. Then, I slid my phone away and focused my undivided attention on Ciara. “Okay,” I said, crossing my arms and leaning back in my chair.
“This whole situation made me realize something. If anything happens to me, Sean will be left with nobody. He has no family, and I wanted him out of all the mob-related stuff, so I never allowed him close to anyone.” She took a deep breath and finally met my eyes, hesitance dancing there. “I don’t want him involved in the mob in any way, but if I die, I need to know that his father will care for him.”
“First of all, you’re not going to die,” I told her. I’d walk through the pits of hell to ensure that. “If you have his father’s contact information, I can get ahold of him and see what I can do.”
“You can,” she agreed, pausing as if waiting for me to say something else. When I didn’t, she cleared her throat. “Viktor, you’re his father.”
Every muscle inside of me tensed at the words. My mind worked fast, trying to find a way to deny it. I wanted to curse at her for feeding me such a lie, but when I saw her serious, unamused expression I realized that this wasn’t a trick. We had been together less than a decade ago, and as I considered the timelines I hadn’t bothered to think about until now, I realized that the timing had added up impeccably.
I balled my fists as I looked at her and realized why her shining demeanor had faded into gray during this encounter. She’d been lying to me for years, and she only told me the truth now for Sean’s sake. Not because she wanted me to be a father to him. Not because she suddenly felt inclined, to be honest. She told me because she now needed me.
“I couldn’t tell you. When I found out I was pregnant, I knew what that meant. You weren’t the boss back then, but you were high enough in the rankings that a child could be in danger if he was discovered to be yours. You didn’t have an empire to keep him safe.” She spoke quickly, sensing that my growing rage was adding up and multiplying quickly. “I did it for his sake, and when my father planned on shipping me to Chicago and keeping Sean as his heir, I realized that I couldn’t put my child in that position. I didn’t want him around death and brutality his whole life, so we left together. It would have been the same if I had come to you. He would have grown up around all of this.”
She gestured around herself as if the violence of my business hovered around me like an unseen aura.
“You kept my child from me,” I spat.
“I’d do it again under the same circumstances, and you have to understand that,” she admitted. “But if I die and you’re the only option, I need you to step up and be his father. And I need you to keep him away from the parts of your job that would traumatize him.”
I couldn’t think past the roaring in my mind as I swept my arm across my desk and cleared it with one sweep. I stood, leaning across the desk and getting in her face. “You kept my son from me foreight years,” I shouted at her.
“I’m not asking anything from you,” she said. “I just need to make sure that if—”
“Don’t you fucking say ‘if I die’ again. Did it not occur to you that I’d want to be involved in my child’s life?” Her eyes widened. “Keeping this from me was cruel, and to tell me now because youwantsomething from me is even more disgusting.”
“I don’t want anything from you,” she shouted back.
I raised my brows and slammed my hands down on my desk. “Fucking ridiculous,” I shouted. “Neither of you are going anywhere. I won’t lose my son again because you’d rather do all of this on your own. Because you apparently have a misguided sense of how I’d raise my child.”
“You’re a mob boss,” she argued.
“Do you think I plan on taking my kid to drug deals and murders? What the fuck kind of father did you expect I’d be. I don’t want him involved in something dangerous like this either, Ciara.”
She went silent for a moment as she watched me fume. “I just—my father—”
“I’m nothing like that piece of shit,” I spat back. “I’m not going to kill people in front of my kid and take away his free will.”
“When this is all over, we can’t stay. I wasn’t telling you this because I wanted you to take custody of him. I have to get out of all of this and go—”
I cut her off again with a harsh laugh. “You’re not taking my son anywhere. Regardless of the danger you’re in, you’re both staying here, and neither of you are going to leave me again.”
“You don’t want me to leave?”
“Of course, I don’t,” I shouted. “I’m pissed, and I don’t tolerate lying. But I wasn’t kidding when I said I’m not letting you go again.”
“I won’t lie to you again, and this is the only thing I’ve ever been dishonest about. I had to keep this from you. We can’t stay, Viktor.”
“You don’t have a choice,” I shot back.
Her eyes widened slightly before she took a deep breath and stood, holding her ground. “I can’t stay here. Viktor, all I’ve ever wanted is to be a teacher, and now that my father I dead, I no longer have any living connections to crime. When we file a divorce and I leave—”
“Neither of those things are going to happen.”
“—I won’t have the mafia connections attached to my name anymore. I’ll be able to teach. I can’t have connections to all of this if I want to make our life better,” she continued, not listening to my protests in the slightest.
