Page 24 of Forgotten Vows

I was saved by a call, though. Alexsei’s phone rang, and he moved to pull it out from his pocket. Based on his expression, he was annoyed to be distracted from the bombshell I’d just dropped in his lap, that I’d been with a Petrov and my big love was a forbidden love. He furrowed his brow, reluctantly tearing his gaze from me as if he wanted to keep going with this conversation.

“It’s Luka,” he said before answering on speaker. “Yes, Boss?”

“Are you on your way here?” he asked without any greeting.

Reading Luka’s tone was a chore all of us tried to master, but the man was too stern, too full of command, that he would never let anyone know what his mood truly was inclining toward at the moment. If I had to guess, he sounded amused. But also annoyed.

“Yes.” Alexsei glanced at me, seeming just as curious about our uncle’s tone.

“With Ivan?” he asked.

This micromanaging wasn’t like him. Among Alexsei, Emil, and I, Luka kept in touch with us like friends and family, not just coworkers of the same organization.

“Yes, I’m here,” I replied.

“Hurry the fuck up,” Luka said gruffly, with a huff.

I frowned, slightly irked that he’d be impatient for me to come home when he was so quick to assure me that I could always take a break and get away when I felt like I needed to. “We are.” I made a hand gesture to the driver to step on it, and the car sped up. “But I don’t understand. You said it was all right for me to take a leave of absence.”

“Itwas. But now I need you. I need you home.Now.”

Alexsei was on edge too. “Did something happen?”

“I’ll let you decide the answer to that,” he bit out. “Just get here. Now.”

Alexsei confirmed that we’d be there soon. None of us ever allowed tracking on our phones because that would be a vulnerability, risking our enemies finding us. Still, he had to know that if we were headed toward his house, we wouldn’t delay.

“What the hell is that about?” I asked.

He shrugged. “No clue.”

I let out a deep breath and wondered if whatever this urgent thing was that Luka needed me home right now for would be something to help me resist thinking about Raisa for at least a little while.

10

RAISA

“Mama?” Lev tugged on my hand as I stared down the boss.

Luka Dubinin wasn’tmyboss. He wasn’t my father, and when I lived under the rule of Konstantin Petrov, he never let an opportunity slide where he could remind me that he was the head of the house.

Luka Dubinin wasn’tmyruler. He wasn’t the man who could tell me what to do, who to see, and when I could speak. My father was never a parent but an overlord in that regard.

Yet, as I stood here with my son clutching my hand, my other one in a fist and propped against my hip, I stared down Ivan’s uncle with a fierce stubbornness that would not be fading any time soon.

He was the big, mighty boss of New York’s strongest crime family. But as he glowered at me, I refused to show an inkling of fear or nervousness. Deep down, I was cringing and whimpering with the need to get out of here and seriously rethink this last-resort plan of seeking help. And still, I didn’t break eye contact. Not even when my son tried to prompt me to look at him with his timid whisper.

“Mama.”

“Yes, love?” I replied to him as I maintained a beady stare right back at Luka.

“I don’t like the way he’s looking at us,” Lev whispered.

“Me neither,” I said.

“And how am I looking at you?” Luka challenged. He folded his hands on his lap, not a single change in his demeanor.

“Like you don’t want us here,” Lev said before I could answer.