Page 29

The rain tapped against the office windows, but I barely heard it. My mind wandered elsewhere, to my house, and the woman currently residing in it as my wife.

For once, I didn’t care about the shipments, the money, the Dalys, or the goddamn rats sniffing around my business.

All I could think about was her. It had worsened since our wedding night, two weeks ago. She was in my veins now—like poison, like salvation. I didn’t know which, and that pissed me off more than anything.

Other men suffered with addictions to drugs and other shit, but I was addicted to her body and everything else she offered.

I sat behind my desk, fingers steepled. Usually, the scent of my cigar hanging heavy in the air was enough to fog my mind, but even that comfort had dulled.

I’d lit it out of habit, not desire. The ashtray was full of half-burnt remnants, all of them abandoned when my mind drifted again. To her. To the way her voice cracked when she moaned my name. The way her eyes shimmered when she was angry, like fire and water all at once.

Goddamn it.

In addition to my fascination, she was pregnant with my child. The reality still hit like a fucking freight train.

But I loved it. She was slowly becoming a part of me. Not just her body, not just the heat we stole in those nights. I liked the sound of her laugh, the softness in her voice when she let her guard down, the goddamn way she looked at me as if I was more than the monster everyone else saw.

She didn’t fear me because I hadn’t given her more reasons to. And I wasn’t ready to usher her into the wholeness of my life. It would scare her, and I knew if I lost her…I’d burn this whole city to the ground.

My phone buzzed on the desk. I didn’t look at it. Business could wait.

I leaned back, closing my eyes, and for a moment, I let the image of her fill the darkness behind my lids.

And the phone rang again.

I reached for it, swiped to answer, and put it on speaker, my voice already rough. “ Privyet.”

“Damien.”

I opened an eye. It was Fedor, but he seldom addressed me by my name. Whatever it was had to be important.

“It’s Katya. She’s awake.”

The world tilted.

I didn’t respond. I didn’t need to. The line went dead before the phone hit the desk. I was already moving, the door swinging open, my footsteps pounding down to the lobby and into the rain.

Every second burned. Every fucking heartbeat screamed at me to move faster.

The guards barely registered me blowing past them. I hadn’t even thought of informing any of them to join me at the hospital. I was halfway to the car before anyone even said a word.

I got behind the wheel myself because I didn’t trust anyone else to get me there fast enough. My hands gripped it, and… I didn’t remember the drive. Just red lights I didn’t stop for, and streets that blurred like watercolors in the rain.

When I finally pushed through the hospital doors, my chest was tight with the kind of weight you carried when you failed someone…and they still mattered.

I stormed down the hall, ignoring the nurses, like a goddamn hurricane in a suit, shoving open her door without knocking.

Moy Zakya.

Eyes open, wide and wet with tears. Her skin was pale, her frame too thin, but she was there, alive, awake, and looking at me.

In that instant, time buckled. I didn’t see the young woman she had become.

I saw the little bundle of joy that shook my very foundations the moment she was born, curled in that blanket like she had when the nurse first placed her in my arms. Her mother’s blood not yet dry, my hands still shaking.

She didn’t cry then. Just stared up at me with those same storm-blue eyes. Waiting. And I, a stone-hearted bastard that I was, hadn’t known what to do. Couldn’t give her what she deserved.

Not that day, anyway.

But this one? This moment?

I crossed the room in two strides and dropped to my knees beside her bed like I was praying at a goddamn altar. She reached out with trembling fingers, and I took them in both hands, holding on like I’d never let go.

Her lips moved. “Papa….”

My chest cracked open.

A sound escaped me then, a breath, a curse, and a raw, short-lived sob, all at once.

I brushed the tears from her cheeks with my thumb and held onto her tighter than I ever had.

Like if I let go, she’d vanish. Like maybe I could crush the fear right out of her, chase away the hell she’d just walked through. Her body melted into mine, trembling.

“I’m here now. I never should have let go. Never should have left you alone, but I…I’m here now.”

She hugged me, crying into the crook of my neck. “I’m so sorry I treated you like shit when you came back,” she croaked. “I missed you so much, Papa. I love you, too.”

“I missed you, too, bunny.”

She giggled, sniffling. “I’m a young woman now, you know? I’m no longer ten years old.”

“You’re still my little girl.”

“And your clothes are wet.”

“It’s raining outside, Katya.”

She smiled slowly. “It feels good. Everything feels good. It’s so good to be back and alive.”

Kissing her cheeks, I buried my face in her hair. I’d never wanted to protect something more in my goddamn life.

The bond between us was alive, and it pulsed like hot blood. Stronger than fear, stronger than the past. For that moment, it was everything I needed. Everything I’d ever wanted with her but never admitted, not even to myself. Not until now.

But under all the closeness was the bitter truth, a gnawing thing that scraped at my ribs like broken glass.

“And Elena? How is she? Knowing her, she must be worried sick.”

She’s married now, to me, and almost three months pregnant with your sibling.

But Katya didn’t know that now, and when she found out?

I held her tighter, my jaw clenching so hard it ached. When she found out…everything could fall apart. But right now, I wanted to believe it wouldn’t. So, I let myself have this, despite how short this new bond would last.

“Elena is fine. You’ll see her after the doctor says you’re free to go.”