Page 31 of Marrying His Son’s Ex (Forbidden Kings #3)

KASI

Day ten of house arrest, and I’m going insane.

The doctor said complete bed rest for a week, but lying in this room while Alaric hovers like I might shatter at any moment is driving me crazy. My shoulder aches, but it’s manageable. The real pain is watching him pace the floor every time I shift position.

“You don’t have to babysit me,” I tell him as he adjusts my pillows for the fifth time this morning. “I’m not going to spontaneously combust.”

“Dr. Patterson said?—”

“Dr. Patterson said rest, not solitary confinement.” I gesture toward the stack of business files on the desk. “You have work to do.”

“Work can wait.”

“Since when?”

He doesn’t answer, just pours fresh water into my glass and checks the bandage on my shoulder with gentle fingers. The touch sends warmth through me that has nothing to do with fever.

“Alaric, I’m fine. The wound is healing. I can move my arm without crying. You don’t need to guard me twenty-four hours a day.”

“Yes, I do.”

The simple certainty in his voice makes my chest tight. Ten days ago, he was the man who kept emotional distance even while claiming my body. Now he won’t leave my side long enough for a proper business meeting.

“Why?” I ask.

“Because every time I close my eyes, I see you bleeding in that restaurant. I wake up in a cold sweat thinking about what would have happened if that bullet had hit two inches to the right.”

I reach for his hand with my good arm, threading our fingers together. “But it didn’t. I’m here. I’m alive.”

“This time.”

“This time is what matters.”

He sits on the edge of the bed, careful not to jar my injured side. “I’ve never been afraid of losing someone before. Not like this. It’s…unsettling.”

“Welcome to caring about people.”

“I don’t like it.”

I laugh, which makes my shoulder protest. “Too bad. You’re stuck with it now.”

“Am I?”

The question carries weight beyond the immediate conversation. We’re not just talking about his protective instincts anymore. We’re talking about what happens when I’m healed, when the immediate crisis passes, when we have to figure out what we are to each other.

“Do you want to be?”

Instead of answering, he leans down and kisses me. Soft, careful, like I’m made of glass. When he pulls back, his eyes are darker than usual.

“I want you safe. Everything else we can figure out later.”

A knock interrupts whatever I was going to say. Maria enters with a lunch tray and her usual cheerful efficiency.

“How are we feeling today, Mrs. Moretti?”

“Restless.”

“That’s a good sign. Means you’re healing.” She sets the tray on my bedside table and starts arranging items. “Mr. Benedetto is here to see you both. Should I tell him to come back later?”

Alaric glances at me. “Feel up to a visitor?”

“God, yes. I’m desperate for adult conversation that doesn’t involve medical updates.”

Benedetto enters with his usual grave expression, but I catch the relief in his eyes when he sees me sitting up and alert.

“You look better than expected,” he says.

“Thanks. I think.”

“Any word on the Russian situation?” Alaric asks.

“That’s why I’m here.” Benedetto pulls up a chair. “Boris Petrov is making noise about retaliation. Word is he’s planning something bigger than a restaurant ambush.”

“What is it this time?”

“We don’t know, but our contacts in Brighton Beach say he’s been meeting with other families. Trying to build a coalition.”

I process this information, my mind automatically working through possibilities. “He’s consolidating power. Using our conflict as an excuse to absorb smaller operations.”

Both men look at me with expressions I can’t quite read.

“What?” I ask.

“You’re thinking like one of us,” Benedetto observes.

“Is that bad?”

“Depends on your perspective,” Alaric says. “From a business standpoint, it’s valuable. From a personal standpoint…”

“It means I’m becoming part of this world instead of just surviving it.”

“Yeah.”

The realization should disturb me more than it does. Who’d have thought that I’d be analyzing criminal power structures and planning defensive strategies against Russian syndicate leaders?

“The women from Dante’s files,” I say. “Are they protected?”

“Yes,” Benedetto confirms. “Funds have been disbursed to all of them.”

“Good.”

“We also found something else in Dante’s study. Another safe, hidden behind the bookshelf. More files, but these are different.”

Alaric’s expression hardens. “Different how?”

“Financial records. Offshore accounts, shell companies, investment portfolios. Looks like he was building his own empire separate from family operations.”

“How much money?” Alaric asks.

“Preliminary estimate? Seventy million, maybe more.”

Seventy million dollars that Dante accumulated through God knows what means, hidden from everyone, including his father.

“That money belongs to his victims,” I say without thinking.

“Legally, it belongs to you,” Benedetto points out. “As his heir.”

“I don’t want it.”

“Kasimira—” Alaric starts.

“I don’t want the money he made by hurting people. Use it for victim compensation, legal fees, whatever it takes to help the women he targeted. But I don’t want a penny of it.”

Alaric and Benedetto exchange a look that carries years of shared understanding.

“You realize what you’re saying?” Alaric asks carefully. “Seventy million dollars is enough to disappear completely. New identity, new life, anywhere in the world you want to go.”

“Is that what you want? For me to disappear?”

“That’s not the point.”

“It’s exactly the point. You’re giving me an out. Clean escape, enough money to never look back. So I’m asking, do you want me to take it?”

The silence stretches between us. This is the moment where he could let me go gracefully, where I could walk away from this world and everything that comes with it.

“No,” he says finally. “I don’t want you to go anywhere.”

“Then it’s settled. The money goes to more victim compensation.”

“Just like that?”

“Just like that.”

Benedetto shakes his head. “Most people would at least think about seventy million dollars.”

“I’m not most people.”

“No,” Alaric says quietly. “You’re not.”

After Benedetto leaves, Alaric speaks.

“You meant it. About the money.”

“Of course I meant it.”

“Why?”

“Because some things are more important than money. Because those women deserve justice, not just warnings. Because…” I struggle to find the right words. “Because I want to build something good out of all this horror.”

“And if that means staying in my world? Accepting everything that comes with it?”

“Then that’s what it means.”

He takes my hand again, his thumb tracing circles on my palm. “This world destroys good things, Kasimira. It corrupts everything it touches.”

“Maybe. Or maybe it just needs more good people refusing to be corrupted.”

“You think you can change it?”

“I think we can change our part of it. Make better choices, protect innocent people, use power responsibly.” I meet his eyes. “I think we can try.”

“We.”

“If you want there to be a we .”

“I want there to be a we more than I’ve wanted anything in decades.”

“Then there’s a we,” I say simply.

He leans down and kisses me again, deeper this time, with heat that has nothing to do with gentle caregiving. When he pulls back, we’re both breathing harder.

“You need to rest.”

“I need you to stop treating me like I’m dying.”

“You almost did die.”

“But I didn’t. And I won’t if you stop wrapping me in cotton and let me live again.”

“What do you want?”

“I want normal conversations about abnormal things. I want to help plan our response to Boris Petrov. I want to work on the victim outreach program. I want to be your partner, not your patient.”

“Partners,” he repeats, testing the word.

“In everything.”

“That’s dangerous.”

“Everything about this is dangerous. That doesn’t make it less worth doing.”

For the first time since the shooting, he smiles. Really smiles, not the careful expression he’s been wearing while monitoring my recovery.

“Partners it is.”

Later that evening, when the pain medication has worn off and I can think clearly, I watch him read business reports in the chair beside our bed. Ten days of barely leaving my side, of careful touches and worried glances. Ten days of him holding himself back.

“Alaric,” I say, my voice dropping to that low, sultry register I know gets under his skin.

He looks up from his stack of papers, those green eyes narrowing like he’s already onto me. “What do you need? More water? You comfortable?” He’s all business, but I catch the way his gaze flicks to my lips, lingering just a second too long.

“Oh, I’m plenty comfortable,” I purr, shifting just enough to let his oversized shirt—my favorite sleepwear steal—slide off my good shoulder, exposing that snake tattoo he can’t stop staring at.

“What I need is for you to ditch those boring documents and come to bed. Like, actually in bed. With me.”

His jaw tightens, and I see the war in his eyes. Mr. Mafia King trying to be a saint while his body’s screaming sinner.

“Kasimira,” he says, voice rough, “the doctor was crystal clear. No exertion. You’re still healing.”

I roll my eyes so hard I’m surprised they don’t pop out.

“Oh, please. I got shot, not turned into a Fabergé egg. I know my limits, and right now, my limit is how much longer I can watch you play nursemaid when what I really want is my husband.” I lean forward, just a smidge, letting the shirt gape enough to give him a peek at what he’s been avoiding for ten whole days.

“You know, the one who sets my skin on fire with a single look?”

“Fuck,” he mutters under his breath, and I grin, knowing I’ve got him on the ropes. He sets his papers down, but he’s still glued to that damn chair like it’s his last line of defense. “You’re trying to kill me, aren’t you?”