Page 22 of Sexting My Bratva Boss (Mafia Silver Foxes #1)

Konstantin

T he morning is good.

Too good.

Sunlight slices through the slats of the blackout curtains in my bedroom, scattering against hardwood floors. The townhouse is silent. Still. Not even Lev pacing on the floor below.

And Audrey is here.

She’s asleep on her side, breath feathering out softly, the duvet kicked down to her waist. Her robe is loose, the curve of her belly just visible beneath the fabric. My child is in there. Mine.

The sight of her like this—peaceful, trusting, soft—rattles me in a way no war, no deal, no death has ever managed.

I should be at the Spire right now, overlooking transactions that rake in more in a day than most people will see in their lives.

I should be putting out fires, issuing threats, reviewing new contracts.

Instead, I’m standing here like a man who's lost.

A man who’s found something he was never meant to have.

Something he doesn’t know how to keep.

You wanted this, I remind myself. Is that true, though? Did I want this?

What I wanted was an heir. A reason to keep going. When Audrey gave me her stipulation, that I let her go after the birth, I agreed.

But now…

I tear myself away.

Downstairs, my boots thud heavily against the tile as I shove them on. I ignore breakfast, ignore Lev’s usual offer of a brief, and tell him to get her home. I leave the townhouse and let the autumn air bite at my skin. Cold is good. It keeps me sharp.

The construction site is already humming by the time I get there. Generators buzz. Jackhammers thunder against concrete. The smell of metal and sweat and earth fills my lungs. I roll up my sleeves, grab a pair of gloves, and take a sledgehammer from one of the men.

No one asks questions. No one dares.

Despite everything I’ve done to build this empire, the most satisfying work for me is often the actual building. Not watching numbers rack up in the accounts; but watching men struggle, make a living, earn their lives.

When their boss shows up in steel-toed boots instead of Italian leather, it’s because he needs the pain. The distraction. The weight of something in his hands that isn’t her.

I don’t think of Audrey at first.

I slam the hammer down again and again, pounding rebar and ego beneath the blows. I lose track of time. The sun climbs. My back aches, my shirt sticks to my skin. It’s only when one of the foremen calls for a break that I stop.

That’s when I see him.

A small boy. Six, maybe seven. Standing beside one of the men I recognize—Aleksy, a welder with twenty years in. The boy has dark hair, cut unevenly, and big brown eyes that take in everything. He’s holding a sandwich in one hand and a toy truck in the other.

Something about him coils around my ribs and squeezes.

He looks too much like Mikhail.

My little brother was thin as a rail. Always hungry, always smiling. He had a way of making a game out of nothing; one time, I brought him home a dented metal truck someone had thrown out. He treated it like it was made of gold. I watched him fall asleep with it clutched to his chest.

And then I left.

I told him I’d be back. I promised him America would change everything, even our mother—she’d be kinder, I’d whispered. She’d be able to love us.

I didn’t get the chance to return in time.

Mikhail had died the winter after I left.

Pneumonia. No medicine, despite the money I was sending back.

Nothing like what I would eventually be able to send, but it was more than anything she—or her boyfriends—ever made.

Should have been more than enough for Mikhail to be seen at the hospital if she’d cared enough to take him.

She said it like she was ordering groceries. Like my brother’s life was just one more debt she didn’t want to pay.

I nod to the boy.

Aleksy notices. “This is Emil,” he says, pride in his voice. “My youngest. The school called in a half day.” The flick of his eyes to his boy, the large hand on Emil’s shoulder—I understand easily that as proud as Aleksy is, he’s nervous.

I have a reputation, after all.

Crouching beside the boy, I offer him a piece of rebar, like a sword. He beams at me and takes it in both hands.

For a second, I imagine a different life. One where Mikhail made it, where I went back in time. One where we both lived like kings..

I leave the site late in the afternoon, after making sure Aleksy gets an envelope for his boy. Inside: tuition for the next three years, and a card with a number he can call if anything ever happens to his family.

“Anything,” I say.

Aleksy nods, eyes misting. “Yes, sir.”

But instead of going back to the townhouse, I go to her place. Our place, the voice whispers, and I try to shake it off, not wanting to think about what it means—that I think of that country house as a home. As somewhere I belong.

I don’t park directly outside but pull around the corner and walk.

Old habits. Ones I can’t seem to break now that I know there’s something more, something hidden, happening in the city. I haven’t forgotten Giuseppe’s blessing, or his warning; somewhere, someone is trying to take him down.

And it seems they’re testing my territory as well to pit us against one another. I wonder if they’ve found out that the two most dangerous men in the city know.

Through the diamond-paned window, I see her silhouette on the couch. She’s curled on her side, a blanket pulled up, the TV casting a soft glow across her face.

She’s asleep again, exhausted no doubt. I take a twisted pleasure in that: she wants to work, wants to be useful, but I wonder how long that will really last. The pregnancy is draining her, our child growing strong.

It makes me want to carry her everywhere.

To wrap her up in cashmere and seal the doors and make sure nothing ever touches her again.

I should go inside.

But I don’t.

I stand in the shadows and watch her.

Like a fucking podonok, a creep.

But a reverent one.

She shifts, murmurs something in her sleep, then stills.

That’s how Lev finds me. I hear him approach before I see him. His tread is familiar. Purposeful.

“How has she been?”

He types quickly, flashes the screen in my direction instead of using the audio. Fine. Sleeping mostly. Left the office early.

Movement flashes behind the window. Kashmere; she’s here late, walking the house. She looks innocent, like someone’s mother, like a maid. Only I and a few other, including Olena, know that Kashmere has killed her fair share of men to get where she is.

Which is why I have her watching the mother of my child.

“Why are you still here?”

Lev pauses. I don’t like that.

This time, he concentrates on his words before turning the phone toward me. I was going to check on the perimeter. But it looks like I’m not the only one who had that idea.

Meeting his gaze, I don’t break eye contact. He knows what I want; he knows that I know that something is off.

She was followed , he adds quickly. From the office.

The blood in my veins turns to ice.

Lev gestures toward the cars up the street, but I don’t want to move.

It takes Kashmere glancing toward us quickly, trying to mask a look of exasperation, for me to move away from the window.

At the edge of the yard, Lev’s phone sounds out: We caught him two blocks from here.

Alone. Unarmed. Stupid. Definitely not one of Sartorre’s top men—just some kid.

I think they’re probing. Seeing how easy she’d be to grab.

I inhale slowly, evenly.

“And now?”

He’s in a bag. Probably halfway down the Hudson.

I nod once.

“Good,” I say. “But next time? Kill them sooner.”

The kid shouldn’t have even made it this far. I stride slowly back to the window. Audrey stirs again, pressing her hand to her stomach in her sleep.

A protective gesture.

I wonder if the baby knows. If it feels that. An ache forms in my chest; did my mother curve a hand over her belly like that? Something in me doubts it. And then another thought follows quickly after: How can I make sure the baby knows that it’s protected by me? That I’ll protect them both?

“More men,” I say. “Discreet. But everywhere. Cameras too. Inside and out.”

Lev nods.

“If anything happens to her…”

His silence is absolute. He understands. It doesn’t matter that he’s led my men for years now, that I’d trust him with my life.

If he loses hers…

“If anything happens to her or the child,” I continue, voice low and lethal, “burn the city down. I want them all dead. Italians, allies, messengers, middlemen. I don’t care. I want them erased.”

Lev bows his head.

He knows I mean it.

Later, when I go inside, finally released from the fear that froze me in place, I don’t feel powerful.

I feel terrified.

She’s still asleep, lips parted, blanket slipped low. Her laptop is closed on the coffee table. A half-empty glass of water rests beside it. The soft scent of vanilla and clean cotton hangs in the air thanks to Kashmere.

And I am utterly ruined.

I kneel beside Audrey, careful not to wake her, and press my palm to the slight swell of her belly.

My child.

My blood.

I didn’t think I wanted a family.

I thought I wanted control.

But this?

This is the only thing that’s ever felt real.