Page 35 of Bratva's Secret Girl

“I told you so,” Rykov says off-screen.

“Oh no.” Payton covers her mouth, but her eyes are distraught. “I’m so sorry.”

“I dealt with it,” I interject mildly.

“What do you mean?” Rykov suddenly grabs the camera and holds it too close to his face, scowling.

I grab Hayley’s wrist and turn her phone, so it faces towards me. I don’t want her to bear the brunt of any of Rykov’s anger. “Bring Payton back, and we’ll talk about your son.”

He pauses, like he’s digesting that ultimatum. “Understood.”

“So you’ll return Payton—” Hayley begins.

“Nyet. She’s mine,” he snaps.

He hangs up, and we’re left again, blinking at one another across the table where I took her virginity.

“Oh my god,” she whispers. “What does that mean?”

I lean into Hayley, breathing in the strawberry scent of her hair, then press my mouth to her forehead in a sweet kiss. “That she’s his, like you belong to me.”

EPILOGUE

MAXIM

10 years later

I wink at my wife over the table that I claimed her on last night, and ten years ago, and she gives me a slow, sexy smile in return.

“Daddy! Cut my potatoes?” Lilia says, nudging her plate towards me.

“Of course, mila’ya.” I lean over and slice the perfectly roasted potatoes. Our chef really is a marvel.

We’re having Sunday lunch, as usual, with just the eight of us. I love it when we go out with the extended family, all the Love sisters and their husbands and children, but with three Russian Bratva bosses and more than a dozen children between us, it’s always chaotic.

Six children, six times Hayley has been pregnant, and now she is more beautiful than ever.

From giving orders to cut throats to taking orders to cut up food, life has changed since Hayley has been in it, and we had our precious, troublesome kids.

“Dad, where do potatoes come from?” Our eldest, Damien, pokes the offending item with his fork. He’s nine.

“Russia,” I reply promptly. “And yes, you have to eat our national dish. Beloved by both Russians and the English.”

“Yeah, but really…” Damien is sceptical. I have a tendency to tell him stories…

“When a daddy potato loves a?—”

Damien groans and the other kids all giggle, except the little ones, who are too young to understand my terrible joke.

“Potato,” declares Leo, on my other side from Lilia, and only two. He abandons his spoon to take a piece of starchy goodness in his tiny fist and hurl it onto the floor next to me.

“Like father, like son.” Hayley gives me a flirty smile, and brushes her hair from her eyes. On her inner wrist I see a flash of her tattoo. The words, “You’re Mine”, and my name beneath, in my handwriting. I have a matching one that curves over my wrist.

I know she’s thinking of the evening all those years ago when I tipped everything on this table onto the floor so I could put a baby in her.

Claim her as mine.

I lean down, pick up the bit of discarded potato, and smile to myself at the gold and resin that fills the dents and scratches in the wooden floorboards. I decided when I cleared up the mess the morning after to make a feature of the imperfections I had created. Because something as wonderful as Hayley giving herself to me should be celebrated, not hidden and repaired as though it’s embarrassing.